Zcash’s Original Builders Leave ECC to Launch ZODL Independent Development Entity

•  Zcash’s original developers left ECC and formed a new independent group called ZODL.
• The Zcash blockchain and ZEC token remain unchanged.

The original builders of Zcash have officially separated from the Electric Coin Company (ECC) and created a new development organization called ZODL. This move marks the most significant change in the privacy-focused cryptocurrency’s history. The team has announced that the flagship wallet known as Zashi will now work under the new name called ZODL.

Reason behind this Split

This separation began in January after the governance dispute between ECC and the bootstrap, which is a nonprofit organization that owns ECC. The disagreement is on the control and decision-making authority, the strategic direction of Zcash, and long-term development autonomy. So the entire ECC staff resigned, and instead of leaving the Zcash ecosystem, the team has regrouped under the new name ZODL. 

Right now, the Zcash blockchain has not forked, and ZEC remains the same asset with all blocks proceeding normally, and the network will function without any interruption. However, the same development team that built Zcash’s core privacy technology and created the Zashi wallet has shifted from ECC to ZODL. ECC still exists under the Bootstrap ownership, but without the old development team.

Image source: https://x.com/jswihart/status/2023430354330378410

Observers have compared this situation with the split between OpenAI and Anthropic in the AI industry. In that case, the engineers have left the company and started forming a new company, which is similar to the Zcash case, in which developers have left the company and formed the same team under a different name to continue work on the blockchain independently. 

The future upgrades, wallet innovation, privacy feature expansion, and governance decisions can be influenced by this shift, but blockchain itself remains unchanged. Based on the coordination between ECC and ZODL, the longer-term impact will be known. 

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