The Zcash Open Development Lab (ZODL) has raised over $25 million to develop the Zodl wallet. The engineering and product team left the Electric Coin Company due to disputes with oversight nonprofit Bootstrap. Investors include a16z Crypto, Coinbase Ventures, Paradigm, and Winklevoss Capital. The funding coincided with a 4.1% price increase for Zcash (ZEC) to $217.80.
The team that departed the Electric Coin Company in January has launched the Zcash Open Development Lab. It secured over $25 million from investors like a16z Crypto and Coinbase Ventures. The group includes former ECC CEO Josh Swihart and the original Zodl wallet engineering team.
They resigned following disputes with Bootstrap over the Zcash protocol’s direction. The funding round also included participation from Paradigm, Winklevoss Capital, and other firms. Individual contributors included former Coinbase CTO Balaji Srinivasan and Dragonfly managing partner Haseeb Qureshi.
ZODL stated that the backing reflects conviction in privacy and the Zcash ecosystem. The funds will be used to expand its engineering team. The open-source Zodl wallet is a key infrastructure for Zcash.
It was initially launched as Zashi before being renamed in February. Zcash (ZEC) was among the top-performing privacy tokens last year, rising nearly tenfold. CoinGecko data shows its price increased 4.1% to $217.80 on news of the funding.
ZODL said the wallet facilitated over $600 million in ZEC swaps since October 2025. The Zcash shielded pool has grown by over 400% since its 2024 launch. This pool mixes transactions to hide sender, receiver, and amount details.
