Zcash CEO Zooko Wilcox Resigns, Leaving Legacy of Privacy Innovation

• Electric Coin Co., the primary developer of ZCash has announced that Zooko Wilcox has stepped down as the CEO. 

• Wilcox has been in leadership for the past 8 years, but would now remain as the director on the board of Bootstrap. 

Electric Coin Company, the developer behind ZCash, the privacy-oriented blockchain network, has announced the step down of the project’s creator, Zooko Wilcox, from the CEO position. This was disclosed in a blog post that sought to explain the new roadmap of the company under a new leadership. In this case, Josh Swihart, formerly SVP of Growth at ECC would be the new CEO of the company.

According to reports, Wilcox assumed the CEO position in 2015. This implies that ZCash was formed under his leadership in 2016. He has also contributed immensely to the technology that powers ZCash. He led ECC to deliver the first real-world application of zero-knowledge proofs in ZCash. According to the official blog post, this has existed as one of the most important contributions to blockchain since 2008. Wilcox’s leadership also saw the implementation of the Sapling upgrade for Zcash.

This initiative made mobile-wallet-shielded transactions possible for the first time. One other contribution under his leadership is the introduction of Halo, a cryptographic breakthrough, a zero-knowledge proving system that “enables recursion without a trusted setup in an efficient way.”

For now, Wilcox would remain as the director on the board of the Bootstrap Project, the parent company of ECC. Swihart would also be fully in charge of all the tactical and strategic decisions.

Fulfilling our mission of economic freedom requires not just groundbreaking technology, but also great products that bring joy to the people who use them. So today we’re excited to redouble our focus on the Zcash user, and we feel confident in Josh’s leadership — in finding product-market fit, unlocking new partnerships and collaboration, and improving.

The New CEO Seeks to Foster Broader Inclusivity in the ZCash Community

All stakeholders are advised to support the decision as the new CEO equally has vast experience with a strong background in “entrepreneurial, technical, and product” according to the post. He would ensure that broad inclusivity is fostered in the ZCash community. 

Wilcox in a separate post spoke highly of Swihart. According to him, they have over the years disagreed on “how”, but never disagreed on “why”. This implies that they share the same mission. Wilcox also disclosed that his involvement with the company in the past 8 years took over his life and his identity.

For me personally, Zcash took over not only my life but also my identity. It was hard for others to see Zcash as something separate from me. Sometimes it was hard for me to do that myself. It has been an incredible experience, and I’ll always be grateful that I had the opportunity to live out one of my science fiction dreams in reality. However, in the long run, I don’t think this conflation of Zcash with me personally is healthy for me, and I don’t think it’s healthy for Zcash. Zcash’s role in human history is, and will be, much bigger than any individual.

As of press time, ZCash was trading at $28.57 after surging by 2% in the last 24 hours. However, the asset has declined by 7% in the last seven days. Analysts predict that ZCash could finish the year at a maximum price of $51.43.