Zooko Wilcox is a founder of Zcash and chief product officer and board member at Shielded Labs. He founded Electric Coin Company and served as its CEO until December 2023.
Shielded Labs and Zcash
Shielded Labs’ current team and board pages identify Wilcox’s product and governance roles. The organization announced his arrival as head of product and a board member in August 2024, with work focused on the proposed Crosslink upgrade.
His founder role in Zcash is distinct from a chief executive position at an organization supporting its development. In his December 2023 transition statement, Wilcox confirmed that Josh Swihart was taking over as Electric Coin Company’s CEO.
Other company roles
Wilcox founded Least Authority in 2011. The company’s current team page lists him as founder and board member, with Liz Steininger as CEO and managing director. His personal professional biography also lists a directorship at Agoric.
Cypherpunk Technologies announced his appointment as a strategic advisor in December 2025. The role concerns guidance on privacy-preserving digital systems.
Privacy technology
Wilcox helped design the BLAKE2 cryptographic hash function. The project’s designer biography also identifies him as a designer of Tahoe-LAFS, a secure distributed storage system. His writing discusses Zcash, software security and the governance of open-source projects.
