Ex-Employee Sues Zcash Operator in $2 Million Lawsuit Over Unpaid Stocks

The company behind cryptocurrency zcash is facing a $2 million legal challenge over unpaid shares, documents originally filed on May 29 confirm.

According to the complaint, which appeared at the Superior Court of California for the County of San Francisco, an ex-employee brought the charges after he did not receive $15,000 of stock in 2016.

Simon Liu worked for Zerocoin, now known as the Electric Coin Company, and additionally claims the company was not legally permitted to offer the equity.

"Plaintiff is informed and believes, and thereon alleges, that Zerocoin did not have the authorization to issue common stock to employees in 2016, and that Defendants, and each of them, were aware that Zerocoin did not have such an authorization," the document reads.

Requests to view company documents were also denied, Liu says.

Neither Zerocoin nor CEO Zooko Wilcox had issued a public statement about the debacle as of press time.

The name change from Zerocoin to the Electric Coin Company had occurred in February, the impetus being to avoid confusion between Zcash and the nonprofit Zcash Foundation.

Zcash currently trades around $79 and has an overall market cap of just under $600 million.

Its all-time high in January 2018 saw a single coin change hands at closer to $900. A dedicated ASIC mining device for Zcash and other Equishash coins, developed by cryptocurrency mining giant Bitmain, appeared in March this year.

In April in a separate case, a former employee of crypto exchange Kraken has also sued the exchange for $900,000, claiming a failure to receive a reportedly promised commission and stock options.