I can't speak to as to whether Zcash is a pump-and-dump particularly, but I do know a bit about financing the technology development behind blockchains, and it's difficult. If the code is open source, you risk a fork and loss of any intrinsic value. If you sell the coins, you risk SEC difficulties in the USA. If you premine, people complain that you premined. If your company controls the currency, you get forks when founders leave (e.g. Ripple/Stellar), and you have to build large compliance teams.

In the end, though, blockchain tech needs SIGNIFICANTLY more technology development than it has had so far to develop its latent potential.

I'm sure blockchain enthusiasts would be interested in your suggestions as to how to get development funded.