Josh Cincinnati announced on July 31, 2020, that he was resigning as the Zcash Foundation's executive director1. He had held the post for three years. His resignation letter went up on GitHub the same day. CryptoComes reported the move the following day, writing that Cincinnati “has resigned from his position yesterday with Zcash on July 31, 2020”2.
Five leadership moves at the Zcash Foundation on the record since 2020
Every move CryptoLately has verified there, by the day it became public
Moves: The Moves Ledger, CryptoLately's record of verified leadership moves, Oct. 3, 2016 to Oct. 2, 2026.
Read the chart as a table
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| July 31, 2020 | Cincinnati left as Executive Director. Josh Cincinnati left as Executive Director of the Zcash Foundation |
| July 31, 2020 | Cincinnati left as Executive Director. Josh Cincinnati left as Executive Director of the Zcash Foundation |
| March 4, 2025 | Gavigan left as Executive Director. Jack Gavigan left as Executive Director of the Zcash Foundation |
| Nov. 1, 2025 | Bornstein became Executive Director. Alex Bornstein was named Executive Director of the Zcash Foundation |
| Nov. 11, 2025 | Delano became COO. Danika Delano was named Chief Operating Officer of the Zcash Foundation |
One executive exit on the record in 2020
Executive exits CryptoLately has verified, by year
- 2020: 1
- 2018, 2019, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025
Moves: The Moves Ledger, CryptoLately's record of verified leadership moves, Oct. 3, 2016 to Oct. 2, 2026.
Read the chart as a table
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| 2018 | 2 |
| 2019 | 6 |
| 2020 | 1 |
| 2021 | 9 |
| 2022 | 9 |
| 2023 | 8 |
| 2024 | 11 |
| 2025 | 20 |
The move
Cincinnati named the reason himself. "Simply put, mutual trust was irreparably lost," he wrote1. He pointed to a falling out with the Electric Coin Company's leadership over the Zcash trademark negotiation and a debate over the project's development fund. His letter called it unlikely “that the ECC's top leadership would ever change (or that the structure of power would meaningfully change at any successor organization)”. That assessment, he wrote, is why he chose to leave.
He framed the exit as a point of principle. “In open systems, those who help architect processes which grant their organizations power should refuse to wield it,” Cincinnati wrote1. Foundation influence, in his view, belongs to an institution rather than to one leader. He said he had grown the Foundation "from scratch over the last three years" and argued a founding leader eventually becomes the wrong person to run an organization.
The Foundation before and after
Cincinnati led two fights during his tenure: the trademark negotiation with the Electric Coin Company and the dev fund debate1. He called both "huge wins for the Zcash ecosystem". Those same fights, he wrote, cost him his working relationship with ECC's leadership. He promised to step back from the Zcash community entirely and to leave the ecosystem's direction to others, publicly and privately.
CryptoComes covered the resignation inside a broader piece on ZEC's price pattern2. The outlet cited analyst Qiao Wang, who called the token's position a "generational buying opportunity" and listed the "governance crisis" around Cincinnati's exit as one factor behind that view. Cincinnati offered his own assessment of the Foundation's future leadership in the same letter CryptoComes quoted: "I'm leaving the Foundation (in very good hands!)."1
What the record shows
Cincinnati's letter closed with a prediction about Zcash's technology. He expected the Zebra node software to become dominant on the network by the end of 20211. The CryptoLately.com Desk located two pages on this move, Cincinnati's own letter and CryptoComes' report the next day. Both leave his successor as executive director unnamed.
Sources
- Josh Cincinnati, "Why I left the Zcash Foundation," GitHub Gist, July 31, 2020, https://gist.github.com/acityinohio/8590e5384806090fbcf5609e613eae51
- Vladislav Sopov, "ZCash (ZEC) Sees Huge Opportunity as Director Leaves, Analyst Qiao Wang Claims," CryptoComes, August 1, 2020, https://cryptocomes.com/news/zcash-zec-sees-huge-opportunity-as-director-leaves-analyst-qiao-wang-claims