This morning I saw that ZEC dropped 30%, and at first I thought the project team had run away. When I rushed into the community, I found out that the core development team ECC had directly resigned en masse and even established a new company. This move confused the market, and retail investors were frantically asking questions on the screen: Is this a team split or is there a deeper reason?

As someone who has been in the crypto space for many years, I can see the underlying issue. This is not just a simple personnel change, but an inevitable pain point that crypto projects face when transitioning from the idealistic stage to actual implementation. Remember the controversy when OpenAI shifted from a purely non-profit to a "public welfare + profit" hybrid model? Zcash's current situation is essentially the same problem—organizational structure cannot keep up with ambitious development, leading to systemic failure.

Zcash has fallen into a dead end of the non-profit model. ECC's choice to resign used a term called "presumed dismissal," which sounds very professional, but in reality, it just means the rules were changed too outrageously, making it impossible to work. This exposes three stubborn issues in non-profit organizations during expansion.

The first pitfall is funding difficulties. Relying solely on donations to sustain operations, trying to develop wallets and promote commercialization? There’s simply no money. OpenAI was able to push ChatGPT from the lab stage to global adoption mainly because of Microsoft's billion-dollar investment infusion. Without real capital, even the best projects can't go far with just ideals.

The second pitfall is incentive mechanisms. Non-profit organizations can't offer core talents equity or options like commercial companies do. When your technical team sees a certain DEX launch a feature and those people double their wealth in two years, while you're still asking donors for money for next month’s salary, morale drops. This isn’t betrayal; it’s human nature.

The third pitfall is decision-making efficiency. Board systems, donor influence, community voting... with so many steps, everything takes forever to discuss. But the crypto market changes lightning-fast. By the time you finish meetings and make decisions, the trend has already passed. Compared to the rapid iteration of some exchanges, the non-profit model appears too cumbersome.

Zcash’s predicament is actually a wake-up call for the entire crypto industry. Privacy coins are already under regulatory pressure, and the project itself is constrained by its non-profit organizational form. Under these double pressures, ECC’s choice can be understood—rather than continue struggling in the quagmire, it’s better to start anew with dignity.