I do agree there seems to be some money grabbing. That disappointed me coz I've known zooko for over 20 years now and I didn't expect that. I'll continue to believe he did the best he could tho. It may be there were commitments to team members to get them to work on it, for example. I admit to not having followed the politics...
Could it be that your relationship or acquaintance with Zooko has coloured your impression of this coin? Because from where I stand, it was nothing more than your average altcoin pump, based on hype that had no more basis than any of the other myriad pumps in cryptoland.
Internet relationship. A few emails, some chat. I participated in one of his projects way back. Reading his stuff since then ...
None of that has anything to do with my belief that zksnarks or something similar are an important building block. Prior to mimble-wimble I would have said zcash was the only anon cryptocurrency to hold (I would use Monero to break the chain but get back out of it asap). The way zcash has been done isn't consistent with that, so now I guess we're waiting for another zksnark type of CC. Disappointing.