Zcash Open Development Lab (ZODL), founded by former Electric Coin Company CEO Josh Swihart and staffed by the ECC engineering/product team that resigned after a governance dispute with Bootstrap, raised over $25 million in seed funding from investors including Paradigm, a16z crypto, Winklevoss Capital, Coinbase Ventures, Cypherpunk Technologies, Chapter One and Balaji Srinivasan. ZODL will continue development of the Zcash protocol and expand Zodl (formerly Zashi), a self-custodial mobile wallet for shielded ZEC transactions; the wallet has increased shielded-pool activity by over 400% and processed more than $600 million in ZEC swaps since October. Funding will support hiring engineers and product development; ECC remains under Bootstrap while the core engineering team now operates through independent ZODL. ZEC traded up ~8.8% to $215 amid a broader market recovery.

Concrete facts: ZODL secured >$25M seed from major investors; the team will continue protocol development and expand the Zodl shielded wallet, which reportedly grew shielded-pool activity >400% and processed >$600M in ZEC swaps since October; ZEC price rose ~8.8% to $215. These are positive, concrete developments for ZEC and its shielded-wallet product.