SEC Closes Probe Into Zcash Foundation as Crypto Enforcement Eases

• Zcash (ZEC) rallied 14% to reach US$445 after the Zcash Foundation announced that the SEC had dropped its long-standing investigation into the organisation.
• The rally follows a period of instability caused by mass resignations at Zcash developer Electric Coin Co, with the Foundation now stressing the network’s independence from any single entity.
• The dropped probe aligns with a broader shift under SEC Chair Paul Atkins and “Project Crypto,” which focuses on moving away from “regulation by enforcement” toward a structured on-chain regulatory framework.

Zcash (ZEC) rallied on Wednesday after the Zcash Foundation said the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) had dropped an investigation into the organisation. The token rose to about US$445 (AU$681), up nearly 6% on the day, and was up close to 14%.

The rally also interrupted a decline that started last week after developers at Electric Coin Company, the firm that created Zcash, resigned en masse, erasing an end-of-year run-up even as interest in privacy coins increased elsewhere.

After that resignation, the Zcash Foundation said its commitments to the protocol had not changed and argued that organisational turmoil does not necessarily reflect network health, describing the Zcash network as independent of any single organisation.

Zcash’s longer-term gains remain large, up 758% over the past year, but it is still far below its 2016 peak near US$3,192 (AU$4,884). On the other side, Monero, another privacy coin, broke above US$500 (AU$748) for the first time since 2021, rising over 20% in a week.

Related: Franklin Templeton Expands Institutional Cash Funds Into Tokenised Markets

The SEC Probe

The SEC issued the Foundation a subpoena in 2023 during a broader enforcement push aimed at assessing whether certain digital assets were issued in violation of securities laws. The report said that since President Donald Trump’s inauguration in January 2025, the regulator has dropped several cases involving digital asset firms.

The Foundation said the outcome reflected its approach to transparency and compliance, and said it remains focused on building privacy-preserving financial infrastructure.

The closure comes as the SEC has scaled back crypto enforcement under President Donald Trump’s administration. Over the past year, the agency has dropped dozens of cases and ended probes involving major crypto firms and DeFi protocols, reversing a more aggressive approach pursued under the Biden administration. 

SEC Chair Paul Atkins has also promoted Project Crypto, an effort aimed at updating rules with more focus on onchain activity.

Read more: South Korea Moves to Lift Institutional Crypto Ban With Proposed 5% Corporate Investment Cap

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