Crypto news: Zooko Wilcox, creator of Zcash, announces his decision to resign from Electric Coin, introducing the new CEO: Josh Swihart.
Swihart, who has served as vice president at Electric Coin for nearly five years, recently spent a four-month period away from the company. Let’s see all the details below.
Zooko Wilcox of Zcash leaves Electric Coin: new crypto horizons with the new CEO
As previously announced, Zooko Wilcox recently decided to step down as CEO of Electric Coin Company (ECC), the team behind the privacy-focused cryptocurrency, Zcash (ZEC).
On December 18th, the ECC officially announced a change in leadership, stating that Josh Swihart would be taking over for Wilcox.
Swihart, already one of the company’s vice presidents of growth from 2018 to 2023, spent four months away from the company, working as a part-time investor at Denver Angels.
This is an investment services company in Colorado, as indicated on its LinkedIn profile.
In response to the change in leadership, the ECC has expressed confidence in Swihart’s leadership, highlighting his vision, passion, and strong entrepreneurial, technical, and product skills.
The company has stated that it will focus its efforts on increasing the utility of Zcash through user-oriented products and improving ECC’s financial positioning.
Wilcox, known as a “maximalist of human freedom,” has reflected positively on his contribution to the construction of Zcash, but has deemed it healthy to separate from him and the company.
Wilcox will remain in his role as director on the board of Bootstrap Project, the parent company of ECC.
Although Wilcox has acknowledged differences with Swihart on strategies for the future of Zcash, he emphasized that both share the fundamental “why”.
The news of his departure has not had a significant impact on the price of ZEC, which currently stands at $28.8, according to CoinGecko.
Zcash (ZEC) is preparing for a major change: from Proof-of-Work to Proof-of-Stake
Zcash (ZEC) has recently announced plans for a significant restructuring of its network, with the intention of migrating from the proof-of-work (PoW) consensus protocol to the proof-of-stake (PoS) protocol.
Electric Coin, the parent company of Zcash, has outlined its commitment to a world-class user experience as part of this update.
In its recent update to the Zcash community, Electric Coin provided details on the roadmap for the first quarter, which includes significant steps towards the transition to PoS.
These steps include the presentation of security topics for holders of ZEC tokens and a performance simulation program for post-transition Zcash.
The PoS consensus protocols, designed to be more energy-efficient, promise to reduce costs for nodes, making the blockchain network more scalable and accelerating consensus.
Although these improvements are synonymous with greater scalability, there is a slight compromise on security, a topic that will be at the center of discussions in the first quarter roadmap for Zcash.
Zcash, a long-time leader in private financial transactions, aims to consolidate its position as the top global and permissionless private cryptocurrency through this transition.
Despite a positive performance in 2021, reaching a new all-time high at $372, the cryptocurrency has subsequently experienced a consistent downward trend, losing over 90% of its value in the last two years.
The decision to migrate to PoS reflects a similar move made by Ethereum in October 2022 during The Merge, highlighting Zcash’s desire to remain competitive in terms of user experience, which is usually hindered by the slower block finalization in PoW networks.
Price predictions for Zcash in 2024
The ZEC price prediction algorithm has forecasted a +36% increase compared to the current value of around $29.33 in the next three months.
This forecast would aim to bring ZEC back above a significant support/resistance level at $34, previously resistance in 2019 and 2020 before a remarkable breakout in 2021.
In the third quarter, ZEC had lost this level after maintaining it for almost exactly three years.
The projected recovery suggests a potential ongoing bullish trend for ZEC, with the aim of surpassing higher resistance levels formed during the bearish phase of the market, such as $30 and $42.
The predicted target of $40, forecasted by the price prediction algorithm, indicates that, at the moment, ZEC may not have the necessary momentum to surpass $42.
However, the transition to a proof-of-stake consensus protocol could generate increasing buying pressure over time. The algorithm predicts a recovery of both key levels mentioned before 2025.
The introduction of proof-of-stake could be crucial for ZEC in competing with more established PoW blockchains like BTC and LTC, improving its block finality compared to more recent PoS chains like Cardano (ADA) and Avalanche (AVAX).
With a solid foundation as a leader in privacy, the price prediction algorithm suggests that migration will directly favor the trend of ZEC prices, with a projected increase of +36% in the next three months.