The problem with Zcash is that from the beginning it was "captured". Look into the investments. The Electric Coin Company (a for profit company) created and maintained zcash until the recent ZODL take over. The ECC had multiple rounds of seed funding from venture capitalists such as the Winklevoss Twins and Digital Currency Group (Barry Silbert) and ZODL just had a big one (https://zodl.com/zodl-raises-25m-in-seed-funding/). This means they are at the whim of tech elites and this immediately devalues their standing among cryptoanarchists.
The issues don't stop there. The centralized structure, ASIC mining (which they pivoted to, much to the annoyance of their miner base) the 20% dev tax, the constant approval of the state, the shady origins of Tel-Aviv development and US Military investment, and distaste for anything with bad optics (e.g. darknet adoption) has effectively removed many of the hardcore cypherpunks from supporting the project out of fear of future (or even current) capture. We have not seen Zcash ever tested, especially with regards to any major hack, but I am of the opinion that there would be a significant attempt at tracing funds from within ZODL t, likely utilizing metadata they are collecting from their ZODL wallet.
Whether or not that is true, I do not know for sure. What I do know is that from a cultural viewpoint Zcash is corporate, sterile, and avoidant towards hardcore cypherpunks. Their direction is influenced by suits who commingle with politicians and government officials who they can lobby for their favor. This also has spread to the crypto industry, which is why exchanges like Coinbase have happily listed them from the beginning, or how they have not faced delistings on exchanges that Monero has faced.
I do believe that they have legitimately brilliant researchers who are doing great work. But they refuse to engage with criticism and have a snootiness which has made them the "corporate" privacy option. As we have seen with transaction totals, this has not translated to actual adoption, or organic user growth. Which is a shame, genuinely, because having competitors in this space for Monero would be great. But Zcash falls short in so many different areas that I simply don't trust it at all.
So to answer your question, I believe Zcash is a pump and dump tech stock with some great research being done. However they have little adoption and no culture to account for it, making it all like fake corporate slop (which in many ways, it is).
