Do you remember when $ZEC was about to ignite a privacy revolution? Now it has fallen below $200, and the chain reaction triggered by the departure of the core team has wiped out over $7 billion in market value in just a few months. But if you look ahead, there have been signs all along.

By the end of 2025, ZEC soared from below $50 in late summer, rising over 700% in just a few weeks, reaching $400 in October, and even touching around $750 in November. At that moment, ZEC became the best-performing asset in the entire crypto market, even surpassing Monero's market cap. The entire ecosystem's valuation once approached nearly $10 billion.

Interestingly, this surge was not just hype. Privacy concepts truly became the hottest narrative at the time. A16z's "Crypto State Report" showed privacy-related searches skyrocketing, and influencers like Arthur Hayes and Naval Ravikant began promoting the idea of "encrypted Bitcoin." Then institutional funds followed suit. Cypherpunk Technologies invested $18 million to buy ZEC, Winklevoss Capital added over $58 million, and Grayscale reopened the Zcash trust. Plus, the November halving event cut the block reward from 3.125 ZEC to 1.5625 ZEC, combined with ZIP-1015's lockbox mechanism diverting 12% of rewards—everything looked perfect.

But things started to turn strange. Before the governance turmoil erupted in 2026, Zcash's DeFi ecosystem TVL had already collapsed. During the price peak, over $30 million was locked in DeFi. Within weeks, it dropped below $2 million. Funds quietly fled, yet the price remained high—this dislocation often signals the market preparing for the next phase.

Then January 2026 arrived. The entire leadership team of Electric Coin Company resigned collectively due to governance conflicts with the Zcash Bootstrap Foundation. The market reacted swiftly, with prices plunging 14-25%. But there's a detail most people overlooked: these developers didn't really abandon Zcash; they just left ECC to start an independent company to continue developing privacy tools, including the Zashi wallet. The protocol itself never stopped.

Looking back at this timeline, it’s almost too neat. Privacy narratives warmed up again, institutional funds bottomed out, halving supply compressed, Hyperliquid Perp launched with leverage, and prices surged eightfold. Then everything reversed—TVL vanished, governance conflicts surfaced, momentum exhausted. The $10 billion market cap instantly shrank to $3 billion, and over $7 billion evaporated. This story is worth deep reflection.