Mission Statement
Today, billions of people in the world do not have access to a fair and open currency or supporting financial services. We build and support Zcash to drive greater freedom and opportunity for everyone.
People and Teams
The Electric Coin Company has nearly 30 employees that are distributed across the world. They work on various things such as protocol development, application development, protocol security, business development and regulatory relations. More info
Organizational Structure
The Electric Coin Company is wholly owned by the Bootstrap Project. The Bootstrap Project is a 501(c)(3) dedicated to the uplift of humanity through technology, scientific discovery, education and human organization. Both Bootstrap and the Electric Coin Company have a board of directors, and the Electric Coin Company also has a Scientific Advisory Group.
Regulation
ECC’s insight and leadership around on-chain privacy and its implications for personal and national security is incredibly valuable for policy makers. Consistent efforts to appropriately guide policy wherever possible have been made since the ECC was founded.
Examples of outreach include dialogue with Financial Action Task Force (FATF) taking part in meetings which resulted in the organization’s recommendations for the cryptocurrency sector. As a result of these efforts Zcash became approved by the New York State Department of Financial Services (NYDFS), the only privacy-protecting cryptocurrency to do so.
Partner Engagement
The ECC supports and contributes to the efforts of organizations like Coin Center, the Blockchain Alliance, the Blockchain Association and Global Digital Finance as wekk as organising PGP Crypto Breakfasts. These are monthly gatherings for policy professionals, think tank scholars and academics to engage in informal discussions around policy for cryptocurrency.
Another program arranged by the ECC is ‘Crypto in Context’. This exists to create opportunities for industry leaders to engage in dialog and discovery, networking and collaborative workshops focused on cryptocurrencies and financial literacy.
Partnerships with Gemini, enabling shielded transactions on their platform and Flexa allowing for easy Zcash mobile payments among several others, demonstrating Zcash as a industry accepted form of Web3 Payment with clear potential for further accessibility in the payments space.
Research and Development
The R&D team have led recognised breakthroughs on several occasions, the first being Zcash as the worlds first commerical use of a Zero-Knowledge SNARK application.
Several more following such as the Sapling network upgrade allowing for lighter, shielded transactions with a memory reduction of over 97 percent enabling for the first time such transactions on a mobile device in a user-friendly way.
The most significant breakthrough being the most recent. The creation of the halo2 trustless proving system. Since 2022, this has been active on the Zcash Mainnet and allows users to leverage a more secure & easily upgradeable construction for their payment protocol.
Funding
The Electric Coin Company receives 7% of the Zcash development fund. Their use of finances can be seen in their transparency reports which they release every quarter.