The event staff that left Electrical Coin Firm in January to launch Zcash Open Improvement Lab (ZODL) has raised over $25 million from the likes of a16z Crypto and Coinbase Ventures to proceed constructing the privacy-focused, self-custodial Zodl pockets.
ZODL was founded by former ECC CEO Josh Swihart and contains the complete engineering and product staff that beforehand labored on the Zodl pockets at ECC. They resigned due to disputes with Bootstrap, the nonprofit that oversees ECC, over how Zcash ought to operate as a privateness protocol.
ZODL said in an X put up on Monday that crypto-focused funding corporations Paradigm, Winklevoss Capital, Cypherpunk Applied sciences, Maelstrom, and Chapter One had been among the many different individuals within the $25 million funding spherical.
Former Coinbase chief know-how officer Balaji Srinivasan, Silicon Valley investor David Friedberg and Dragonfly managing associate Haseeb Qureshi additionally contributed.
ZODL mentioned the widespread backing “displays sturdy conviction from a few of the most revered traders in crypto, not solely in privateness as a precept, however within the continued progress of the Zcash ecosystem,” including it could use the funds to expand its engineering team.
The open-source Zodl pockets is without doubt one of the essential infrastructures powering the Zcash ecosystem.
Zodl pockets was initially launched by ECC under Swihart’s leadership as Zashi earlier than ZODL renamed it to Zodl pockets in February.
Zcash jumps practically 10% over 24 hours
Zcash (ZEC) was one of many better-performing privacy tokens last year, rising practically tenfold from $55.86 to $527.84 amid renewed curiosity in privacy-focused protocols.
Whereas ZEC has been impacted by the broader crypto market pullback to begin 2026, it elevated 4.1% to $217.80 on information of the newest funding spherical, CoinGecko data exhibits.
Associated: US Treasury report notes legitimate privacy uses for crypto mixers
ZODL mentioned the Zodl pockets facilitated greater than $600 million in ZEC swaps since October 2025, whereas noting that the Zcash shielded pool has grown by over 400% since its launch in 2024.
The Zcash shielded pool is the protocol’s essential function to combine transactions so particulars of the sender, receiver and quantity stay hidden and untraceable.
Journal: 2026 is the year of pragmatic privacy in crypto — Canton, Zcash and more
