Zcash founder Zooko Wilcox steps down as CEO of Electric Coin Co.

Electric Coin Company’s former senior vice president of growth Josh Swihart will become the company’s second CEO

article-image

Former Electric Coin Company CEO Zooko Wilcox | Electric Coin Company modified by Blockworks

share

Zooko Wilcox is stepping down as CEO of Electric Coin Company, the entity behind the development of Zcash. 

Former senior vice president of growth Josh Swihart will succeed Wilcox, the company announced Monday. 

Electric Coin Co. was founded in 2015 with Wilcox at the helm to foster the development of Zcash, which debuted in 2016. Zcash is a privacy-focused crypto that uses opt-in shielded addresses and zk-SNARKs to hide users’ financial information. On Bitcoin, by contrast, transactions are all publicly recorded on the blockchain. 

At launch, Zcash emerged as one of a number of major privacy cryptos, trading well over $1,000 shortly after its release. Zcash (ZEC) was worth around $28.50 on Monday afternoon.

In a blog post explaining his departure, Wilcox said Zcash began to take over his identity during his time as chief executive. 

“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,” the 49-year-old Wilcox wrote. 

As for what he’ll do next, Wilcox said he was “still blinking and rubbing my eyes.”

“Anything that I could commit to would need to be focused on human freedom, because freedom is what breathes life into everything that we love and value,” he wrote.

Electric Coin Co. said Wilcox would stay as director of the board of the Bootstrap Project, Electric Coin Co’s parent company.

In a blog post, Swihart said Zcash’s focus in the “new season” would be to “find product-market fit.” 

Swihart said his near-term priorities would be to iterate more quickly, increase Zcash’s utility, and make Electric Coin Company financially sustainable.


Get the news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters:

Tags

Upcoming Events

Old Billingsgate

Mon - Wed, October 13 - 15, 2025

Blockworks’ Digital Asset Summit (DAS) will feature conversations between the builders, allocators, and legislators who will shape the trajectory of the digital asset ecosystem in the US and abroad.

Industry City | Brooklyn, NY

TUES - THURS, JUNE 24 - 26, 2025

Permissionless IV serves as the definitive gathering for crypto’s technical founders, developers, and builders to come together and create the future.If you’re ready to shape the future of crypto, Permissionless IV is where it happens.

Brooklyn, NY

SUN - MON, JUN. 22 - 23, 2025

Blockworks and Cracked Labs are teaming up for the third installment of the Permissionless Hackathon, happening June 22–23, 2025 in Brooklyn, NY. This is a 36-hour IRL builder sprint where developers, designers, and creatives ship real projects solving real problems across […]

recent research

Featured.png

Research

Helium stands at a pivotal moment in its evolution as a decentralized wireless network, balancing rapid growth, economic restructuring, and global expansion. With accelerated growth in domestic DAUs and Hotspots supporting its network, Helium is leveraging strategic partnerships and innovative proposals to scale internationally. The recent implementation of HIP 138, “Return to HNT,” has unified its token economy under HNT, simplifying participation and strengthening liquidity, while HIP 139’s phase-out of CBRS refocuses efforts on scalable Wi-Fi offload. Meanwhile, governance shifts under HIP 141 raise questions about centralization as Nova Labs consolidates control over the roadmap.

article-image

In 2011, WikiLeaks faced a financial blockade imposed by the US government. It was Bitcoin’s first major test.

article-image

Kado’s founder Emery Andrew spoke to Blockworks about the acquisition and what’s next for the team

article-image

LayerZero’s Bryan Pellegrino chatted with Blockworks about the firm’s next steps and its 10-year runway

article-image

Colosseum co-founder Matty Taylor is seeing “high-performance [Solana] founders showing a lot of interest in private trading technology”

article-image

Executives weigh the growth potential they see in the public stock and private credit/equities arenas

article-image

Players can stake ME, trade tokens and link wallets to climb the leaderboard