According to reports, the Zcash crash was triggered by the disclosure of a critical counterfeiting bug in its Orchard shielded pool earlier this month. Shielded Labs, an independent Zcash support organization, commissioned the audit and provided prompts developed by security firm Defuse Security, according to Jason McGee, a community figure who detailed the arrangement on X. Wilcox-O’Hearn thanked Anthropic for the effort and said the work to harden Zcash’s security would continue.

Mythos audit provides a clean bill of health to Zcash

The Mythos audit functions as a de facto external validation at a moment when confidence in Zcash’s codebase is under intense scrutiny. In early June, researcher Taylor Hornby discovered that the Orchard shielded pool contained a flaw allowing unlimited minting of counterfeit ZEC. The vulnerability had existed for around four years. While there was no evidence of exploitation, the disclosure was bad news for Zcash, as ZEC fell from approximately $621 to a low of $303 on June 5.

The token made an attempt at recovery on June 8, rising to $427.67, which was a 41.5% recovery of the drop, CoinMarketCap data showed. As of June 12, ZEC traded around $438 and later dropped to around $410. As of the time of publication, the token was trading around $415 with a market capitalization of over $6.94 billion, per CoinMarketCap. The Zcash Open Development Lab (ZODL) reportedly patched the Orchard flaw, and by June 3, it reported that it had resolved the underlying issue.

Mining pools ViaBTC and Foundry coordinated with the team on the response, per ZODL founder Josh Swihart. The Mythos result is one piece of a wider campaign to harden security by Zcash. The Zcash team published the Ironwood proposal on June 7. It contains a plan for a new shielded pool built on top of the existing Orchard architecture. Ironwood, co-developed with Tachyon, Valar Group, the Zcash Foundation, and Shielded Labs, would require formal verification and multiple independent audits before deployment.

The Ironwood design introduces turnstile accounting that would migrate all legitimate coins out of the current Orchard pool into the new one. Even if counterfeit ZEC was created in the old pool, it could not cross into Ironwood. This layered approach, patching the existing flaw, running an independent AI audit, and proposing architectural changes, signals that the Zcash development community is treating the Orchard incident as a catalyst for deeper protocol review rather than a one-time fix.

Despite the clean bill of health, the market pricing remains uncertain. BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes sold his entire ZEC position after the Orchard disclosure, and ThorChain delayed its planned ZEC integration until the protocol can confirm no significant counterfeit supply exists. The privacy features that make Zcash valuable also make it impossible to prove with certainty that the bug was never exploited, a tension the Zcash community forum has debated extensively.

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The privacy-focused cryptocurrency recovered above $435 after falling as low as $322 during a week marked by uncertainty and panic among investors. 

While the network remains operational, questions about supply integrity continue to shape market sentiment.

ZEC rose by about 12% on June 7 following the announcement of the proposed Ironwood verification system. 

Despite the rebound, the token remains down roughly 21% over the past seven days as traders continue to assess the long-term impact of the vulnerability.

Security Flaw Triggered Market Panic

The controversy began after security researcher Taylor Hornby identified a critical weakness within ZCash’s Orchard shielded pool. 

The flaw created a possibility for unauthorized ZEC to be minted inside the privacy-focused section of the network.

Hornby reportedly used artificial intelligence tools to test the Orchard pool and later informed the ZCash Open Development Lab. 

Developers patched the issue on June 2. However, the disclosure itself sparked widespread concern because the private nature of Orchard makes independent auditing difficult.

The vulnerability is believed to have existed for approximately four years. Because transactions within the Orchard pool are confidential, there is currently no definitive proof showing whether anyone successfully exploited the flaw. 

This uncertainty fueled speculation about the true supply of ZEC and raised concerns that the asset could lose significant value.

Questions Remain Around Orchard Pool Activity

ZCash developers stated that the vulnerability only affected coin creation within the Orchard shielded pool and did not alter the publicly reported circulating supply. Current circulation remains at 16,755,823 ZEC according to network data.

The Orchard pool provides the highest privacy level available on the ZCash network. As a result, transaction participants and transfer details remain hidden from public view. 

This design makes it difficult to determine whether counterfeit coins ever entered circulation.

Earlier in 2026, a large holder moved approximately 202,000 ZEC out of the Orchard pool in a single transaction. 

The Orchard pool doubled its ZEC supply in the past year, with only a handful of withdrawals. There is still no way to prove if counterfeit ZEC was created, as the pool shields all transactions. | Source: ZCash Info

The transfer represented around 1% of the pool’s holdings. Since Orchard activity cannot be fully traced, there is no way to verify whether all withdrawn coins originated from legitimate deposits.

Ironwood Proposal Targets Supply Verification

To address lingering concerns, the ZCash team introduced the proposed Ironwood verification system. 

The upgrade would allow node operators to independently verify that the circulating supply matches the network’s expected mining schedule.

Under the proposal, the current Orchard pool would eventually be replaced with a new shielded pool using turnstile accounting. 

This mechanism would require users to transfer legitimate balances into the new system while preventing any potentially counterfeit coins from crossing over.

The proposal still requires community approval. However, developers believe the approach could provide stronger assurance that ZCash’s supply remains accurate while helping rebuild trust after one of the network’s most challenging weeks.

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The crypto whale has been a major metric for on-chain analysts and its competing whales. This move comes in when BTC and ETH have been posting back-to-back losses. Bitcoin price has dropped by around 4% in the last 30 days, while Ether price dipped by more than 11%. Onchainlens in a post reported that Evaded closed its BTC and ETH short positions. However, it made a profit of $1.77 million. After just hours of bagging profits, the whale made some new moves. It went on to buy 41,400 long shares of MSFT and 56,600 long shares of ORCL at a 10x leverage ratio.

Crypto whale makes long bets on Microsoft and Oracle

Microsoft share price has surged by more than 10% over the last month. MSTR traded at $450.24 in the last trading session. Oracle share price has spiked by almost 40% in the same period. It traded at $225.78 in the last trading session. The successful trade marked a particularly rough period for the trader. Lookonchain data shows that the crypto whale had continuously switched between taking bullish and bearish stances on Bitcoin as its volatility rose through May.

On May 20, Lookonchain reported that the whale wallet had earned approximately $2.1 million in just two days after opening 10x leveraged long positions in Zcash (ZEC) and HYPE token. At that time, the wallet held 36,875 ZEC worth about $21.6 million and 287,618 HYPE valued at roughly $13.9 million. Later on May 22, its ZEC and HYPE bets bagged it more than $7.5 million in unrealized gains in less than four days. It then opened another 25x leveraged long position on 18,100 ETH (approx worth $38.6 million).

Its bullish stance was short-lived as the crypto whale closed all of his HYPE, ZEC, and ETH long positions on May 23. It still made a profit of $4.6 million and reversed the position. Evaded opened a 990 BTC short position worth nearly $74.8 million. The new bearish bet was initially successful, generating about $783,000 in unrealized profit. Later on, the trader exited the Bitcoin short at a loss of roughly $320,000 and once again flipped bullish. May 24 saw the crypto whale focus on ZEC and added 53,500 ZEC long position (approx worth $34 million).

The trade immediately moved against him, leaving the position down about $763,000. On May 26, the crypto whale reopened a 40x leveraged Bitcoin short (approx worth $40.3 million) and was also holding a large ZEC long. By then, the ZEC position was showing an unrealized loss of around $1.87 million. Then came May 27, when Evaded closed both the ZEC long and Bitcoin short positions.

This hit him with a loss of more than $4.8 million. The losses erased all of the trader’s earlier gains and left him down roughly $3.67 million overall during the period. Despite the setback, Evaded immediately increased his leverage to 30x and opened another large Bitcoin short position consisting of 940 BTC valued at about $71.4 million, with a liquidation price near $78,421.

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The release mentioned that the new system combines bridging, swapping, and settlement into a single action. However, the details about the sender or transfer amounts remain hidden on public explorers. This comes in when the global crypto market witnessed a minor recovery in altcoins. Bitcoin remained stuck around the $73k levels while NEAR printed a green index. Its price jumped by more than 3% in the last 24 hours. NEAR is traded at $2.43 at the press time.

NEAR protocol rolls out its Universal Send feature

According to reports, Universal Send is built on NEAR Intents. It mentioned that the protocol’s intent-based execution layer has processed over $18 billion in cumulative volume. In an X post, NEAR highlighted that users scan a QR code, choose a token, and confirm payment. The system will handle conversion and routing. In the end, the recipient gets funds in the requested asset, regardless of the origin chain.

It added that the settlement is handled via competing third-party “solvers.” They carry out user-defined intents and finalize the transactions on-chain. The protocol compares this privacy model to single-chain confidential systems like Zcash. However, it operates across multiple blockchains. Security researchers and bridge analysts had reportedly described intent-based systems as a huge change from traditional bridging.

They also noted that TEE-based privacy introduces a different trust model. It highlighted that a 2026 risk assessment done by Hindenrank found that NEAR Intents can land in the “moderate risk” category. This is due to the freshness of cross-chain verification systems. However, it also relies on external execution agents, despite audits of key components.

Another researcher at LeoDex posted that this design lowers on-chain attack risks. It’s like MEV and frontrunning by shifting execution off-chain. They still depend on solver honesty. Universal Send is combining execution abstraction with privacy in a single layer. On the other side, Liquidity-based bridges like THORChain execute swaps on-chain via liquidity pools. This makes transactions visible and prices dependent on pool depth.

There are privacy-focused networks like Zcash, too. They offer strong cryptographic protection but are limited to single-chain use. Meanwhile, Coin mixers such as Tornado Cash obscure transaction histories after execution. It does not even support native cross-chain settlement.

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According to James Wynn, the fabricated news claimed that Timmer predicted that Zcash would soar to $108,000 by 2028. In his post, the trader wrote: “Don’t buy Zcash, it’s an orchestrated pump and dump by the influencer cabal. Do I really need to be the one to say this?” Other traders shared in Wynn’s sentiment, pointing to a pattern that resembled earlier hype-driven surges that ended in collapses after early bird investors sold their coins during market peaks to take profits.

James Wynn urges traders not to fall for the Zcash pump and dump

Crypto trader Rajat Soni also took to X to criticize the sudden enthusiasm for Zcash. “This is why I will never buy Zcash; they need exit liquidity. Buy at your own risk. You might get dumped on the second you own it,” he said. However, the warnings are a complete contrast to the optimism expressed by some crypto KOLs.

Most of them believe the privacy coin has been around for years and has enough market credibility to beat the pump-and-dump allegations. The 2016-launched blockchain privacy project is a decentralized cryptocurrency that uses zk-SNARK zero-knowledge proofs, which enables nodes to confirm transactions without revealing info such as the sender’s wallet address.

Transactions are still broadcast on a public blockchain, but Zcash conceals addresses and transaction amounts by default. However, users can still choose to reveal transaction data for auditing or regulatory purposes. Bitwise CEO Hunter Horsley also pushed back against attempts to frame Zcash as illegitimate or suspicious.

Horsley argued that naysayers who insist only Bitcoin is the legitimate crypto would have a hard time convincing the community that Zcash is a scam outright. “The ‘Bitcoin only, everything else is a scam’ crowd is going to get really twisted trying to figure out what to say about Zcash. Looking forward to the creative explanations of why Zcash is not ‘crypto, ‘” Horsley said.

Winklevoss-backed firm unveils its Zcash treasury

Another KOL, BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes, has made several posts on X endorsing Zcash, claiming in late October that ZEC was superior to XRP, and stating that the token’s chart was “just so stronk I aped more.” In another post, he said that “all he wants for Christmas is ZEC.” Meanwhile, Transaction data from Arkham Intelligence showed he was offloading substantial amounts of other digital assets over the weekend.

Hayes sold 520 ETH worth $1.66 million, 2.62 million ENA valued at $733,000, and 132,730 ETHFI worth $124,000 late Saturday. Despite these sales, Hayes had not moved the capital into another position, though speculation grew that he may be preparing to buy Zcash and wait for an end-of-the-year market rout. While the division over the legitimacy remains ongoing, Leap Therapeutics announced a $58.88 million private placement led by Winklevoss Capital last week.

The investment firm, founded by Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss in 2012, launched the Gemini crypto exchange in 2014. Following the investment, Leap Therapeutics said it would convert into a crypto treasury company named Cypherpunk Technologies Inc., to accumulate Zcash’s token, ZEC. The company disclosed it had already used $50 million from the placement to buy 203,775.27 ZEC at an average price of $245.37.

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The burst in popularity again made privacy-oriented assets interesting and brought new friction between Bitcoin participants and Zcash participants.

Bitcoin enthusiasts raise doubts about the rally

Most Bitcoin enthusiasts were frustrated by the rapid increase that has seen BTC lose its status as the only reputable digital asset. Their inability to justify the move rapidity was due to the fact that they had gotten used to slower but more reliable growth with Bitcoin. According to a statement made by the CEO of Bitwise, Hunter Horsley, the reaction illustrated the existence of a belief gap since those that opposed the rally viewed it as a threat to concepts that defined value in the crypto realm.

Other Bitcoin critics mentioned the surge as being a coordinated price attempt. Analyst Bit Paine cited the 1500% growth since October and alleged that the move might be from large investors. They claimed that retail buyers who would buy at the late stage could run into huge losses in case of the price reduction. This opinion contributed to the broader anxieties regarding volatility and equitability in a market that is already subject to criticism.

Bitcoin enthusiasts opined that stable growth led to stability. Advocates of privacy coins responded that high growth was a positive indication of the increasing demand of privacy capabilities not provided by Bitcoin. The price action was replaced by the questions of what makes a cryptocurrency reliable.

The proponents of privacy protect Zcash

Bitcoin adherents criticized privacy advocates by pushing back. They claimed that the reaction of most people was not understanding the Zcash technology and its usage. The CEO of Helius Mert Mumtaz claims that the criticism was hypothetical since it failed to provide the financial rationale behind the move. He further explained that Zcash has good privacy at the time when people are ever more watched online.

In October, Zcash rose to the position of the largest privacy coin, having passed an eight year high. It surpassed Monero in terms of market capitalization and rose above $11.2 billion. This increased it to a position near Cardano and the top ten globally used cryptocurrencies.

There was also an enhancement in investment interest. BitMEX founder Arthur Hayes asserted that in his family office Zcash is second only to Bitcoin in terms of liquid assets. This announcement fueled the market favoritism.

Increasing presence in the crypto industry

There was also the effect of the rally on activity outside the crypto charts. Leap Therapeutics was re-branded Cypherpunk Technologies, which was a company with the support of the Zcash treasury. It received an investment in Winklevoss Capital and its share price rose over 170%. This was seen by the supporters as an indication that privacy projects are increasingly getting a wider appreciation.

The increase created a further debate in the Bitcoin community concerning incorporating additional privacy functions. Other developers revived the intention to reenable OP_CAT to allow the use of advanced tools available in Zcash.

Zcash produced one of the best markets of the year and compelled a more open discussion on privacy in digital finance. Its adherents claimed that its increase demonstrates that privacy coins can expand along with Bitcoin and lead to the innovation in the sector.

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The shielded ZEC increase can be attributed to the development of a higher number of retail clients and a new wave of confidence in privacy-oriented assets.

Increasing shielded supply announces growing adoption

Another 959 ZEC was transferred into shielded pools over the last day, and the trend of enhanced privacy is on the rise. In the previous three weeks, the project has almost shielded one million ZEC, which is a huge step. A significant number of retail holders have been storing their tokens rather than selling them, which shows a tendency towards long-term storage and deployment to decentralized applications.

More ZEC coins are being added to shielded pools, suggesting accumulation instead of selling for profit. | Source: ZEC Dashboard.

The author of ZCash emphasized this success as an indicator of a greater involvement of the community and the expanded acceptance of privacy technology. The fact that there will be more coins flowing into shielded pools also presupposes that there will be less selling pressure in exchanges since such assets will be retained by their holders to make safe transactions instead of selling them.

Solana and growing DeFi use integration

A portion of the new impetus behind ZCash stems from its growing use in decentralized finance. This Solana integration into ZEC has enabled the use of shielded coins on alternative blockchain systems. Naturally, this integration provides the user with a greater variety of alternatives but preserves their privacy and can help the asset remain pertinent in the increasingly multi-chain environment.

Even though ZCash is an older project, it still stands out among other privacy coins in spite of its age. Its integration with DeFi systems and perpetual emphasis on safe transactions have made it stronger as one of the privacy-driven cryptocurrencies.

Stability and interest in the market

In recent weeks, ZEC has remained stable with a steady performance above the 250 mark and has regained the 270 mark. This stability is a positive indicator to analysts that it is increasingly becoming investor confident. There could be a shift towards $500 in the eventuality of the current trends. In the last year, ZEC has been making more gains than Bitcoin as well, up to 0.002 BTC.

ZCash has a history of presence in the crypto world, and it has not deviated in its mission to facilitate anonymous and verifiable transactions. This has been consistent enough to maintain the community trust despite the introduction of new privacy projects in the market.

Growing accessibility and whale hunting

Retail activity has also been stoked by the recent surge of activity in the Near Protocol and the Zashi app. The Zashi wallet has become the primary trading and protection platform of ZEC since it was removed from the Keystone wallet. It has been reported that one big holder has been trading up to 50 BTC a day in ZEC, and this has been increasing the liquidity of the coin.

Although ZEC is not yet of significant interest among the open market compared to the bigger altcoins, it has a stable market base in terms of retail and whale involvement. With slower growth in other privacy coins, such as Monero and Railgun, the recent record of ZCash shows its strength and changing position in the privacy coin market.

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