The panel breaks down the Zcash drama: the Electric Coin Company team resigns en masse over a governance clash, sparking a sharp but short-lived ZEC price drop. Panelists call it a "nothing burger", since the core devs are starting a new company to keep building privacy tech, and the protocol is unaffected.

Debate intensifies on privacy coins (Zcash vs. Monero tech/adoption), why on-chain privacy is essential for payments, DeFi, and institutions, and broader market confusion: Bitcoin range-bound at ~$90K, mixed signals across stocks/gold/bonds, middle-class affordability woes, and prospects for an altcoin/small-cap rotation.