Privacy-focused cryptocurrency Zcash rose about 7% in the past day, outperforming Bitcoin after a key development team announced a $25 million funding round.
The investment was raised by Zcash Open Development Lab, a venture founded by former Electric Coin Company CEO Josh Swihart to continue building infrastructure for the Zcash ecosystem.
Investors in the Series A round include Paradigm, Andreessen Horowitz, Winklevoss Capital, and Coinbase Ventures.
ZODL said the funding will support development of its privacy-focused wallet platform, formerly called Zashi and now branded as the Zodl wallet, designed as a self-custodial financial platform with interoperability across the Zcash ecosystem.
Since launching in 2024, the wallet has helped expand Zcash’s shielded transaction pool by more than 400% and processed over $600 million in ZEC swaps since October 2025.
Zcash, first launched in 2016 with early technical contributions linked to whistleblower Edward Snowden, is designed to offer stronger transaction privacy than most cryptocurrencies by hiding sender, receiver and transaction value data.
Despite the recent rally to around $215, ZEC remains roughly 11% lower over the past month, though it outpaced Bitcoin’s roughly 3% daily gain during the same period.
At the time of reporting, Zcash price was $222.66.