The flagship mobile wallet for the Zcash (ZEC) cryptocurrency, Zashi, has officially rebranded to Zodl following a complete split of its development team from its former parent organization, the Electric Coin Company (ECC). The rebranding was announced on February 16, 2026, and will be applied automatically in the next app update.
The transition is purely organizational and cosmetic, with the team stressing that no user action is required. Wallet functionality, security, user balances, transaction history, and seed phrases remain unchanged, and the app will continue to connect to the Zcash blockchain seamlessly.
The change follows the departure of the entire Zashi development team from ECC in January 2026. The team, which includes the original creators of both the Zcash protocol and the Zashi wallet, resigned after internal disagreements over governance, funding, and autonomy. Former ECC CEO Josh Swihart stated that decisions by four board members of the governing nonprofit, Bootstrap, "forced every person at ECC to exit the company, very quickly."
After leaving, the team formed a new independent company called the Zcash Open Development Lab (ZODL). The wallet has been renamed Zodl and is now fully under this new entity's management. The developers framed the move as necessary to support long-term growth "without reliance on the Zcash development fund."
In its announcement, the Zodl team reaffirmed its commitment to financial privacy, stating, "We envision a world without mass financial surveillance... There is no sovereignty without privacy. Our banner has changed, but our mission has not." The rebrand comes as privacy-focused features gain traction, with shielded ZEC transactions now accounting for roughly 30% of the circulating supply.
The split highlights ongoing friction between non-profit governance bodies and independent development teams in crypto. Bootstrap, the nonprofit governing ECC, argued the flashpoint was a proposed transaction to move Zashi into a for-profit structure to attract outside capital, which raised legal constraints tied to nonprofit fiduciary duties.
