The creators of the privacy-focused cryptocurrency Zcash (ZEC) have handed over ownership of the cryptocurrency’s trademark to the non-profit Zcash Foundation in a bid to improve ZEC’s decentralization.
According to a blog post published by Zcash’s creators, the Electric Coin Company (ECC), the contract officially passing the ownership was signed and executed this Wednesday, November 6.
Zcash was launched back in 2016 with the ECC being one of the cryptocurrency’s main developers. The Zcash Foundation is a non-profit of the crypto’s fans, developers, and engineers looking to promote and support ZEC.
The ECC wrote:
The trademark protects the community from scammers and gives legal force to governance decisions by guaranteeing that the Zcash name is applied to the correct blockchain
The move comes after months of negations and is looking to help further decentralized the privacy-centric cryptocurrency, while helping “honor and protect” its community. While the ownership was transferred at no cost, there are a few terms.
The agreement makes it clear no party will be able to independently declare a specific chain can be called Zcash if a hard fork occurs, and both the ECC and the Zcash Foundation will have to approve each other’s use of the crypto’s logo and branding.
Both parties must also agree to significant network upgrades before they are implemented. IF there isn’t an agreement before a significant network upgrade, it foresees a chain split where neither one of the result blockchains can be called Zcash.
Both the ECC and the Zcash Foundation can voluntarily terminate the agreement, although if one does the trademark rights will be awarded to the other party. In case either goes bankrupt, the same thing would happen.
As CryptoGlobe reported Zcash may soon enter Ethereum’s decentralized finance ecosystem through a wrapped token, just like Bitcoin did via the Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC) token.
Featured image via Pixabay.
