Zcash (ZEC) rebounded about 45% from last week's low after developers proposed a new upgrade to repair the privacy flaw that triggered a steep selloff.
Key Points:
- ZEC climbed roughly 45% from a Friday low near $300, trading around $437 on Monday.
- Developers proposed Ironwood, a plan to let anyone confirm no counterfeit ZEC is circulating.
- The token stays down about 22% on the week after a counterfeiting bug rattled holders.
Zcash Recovers From Selloff
The token traded around $437 on Monday, a roughly 45% bounce off the $300 area it touched Friday, market data showed. It still sat down about 22% over the week, leaving the recovery only partial.
The slide began after Shielded Labs, a nonprofit developer on the network, disclosed a counterfeiting bug in the Orchard pool. The flaw had gone unnoticed since the Orchard pool launched in 2022. It could have let an attacker mint fake ZEC and drain the shielded pool without detection.
Security researcher Taylor Hornby found the bug on May 29 with help from an advanced AI model while auditing the code. Developers patched it within days through two emergency network upgrades completed Jun. 1 and Jun. 2, coordinated with mining pools ViaBTC and Foundry.
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Ironwood Targets Supply Proof
On Jun. 6, the same groups proposed Ironwood, a plan to restore users' ability to confirm the coin's supply is sound. The team is targeting activation for late July. It would build a fresh privacy pool with repaired code and block new coins in the old Orchard pool.
Once it activates, anyone running the Zcash software could tally balances across pools and check that no extra ZEC exists. As coins leave the old pool through a turnstile, any counterfeit tokens would either surface on-chain or stay stranded and be destroyed.
Zcash co-founder Zooko Wilcox said holders cannot yet verify the supply themselves, the gap the upgrade aims to close. Investor Chamath Palihapitiya told readers the plan would let node operators tally balances and confirm the supply is clean. Ripple's David Schwartz argued untouched coins would stay safe even if their owners never move them to the new pool.
ZEC Crash Still Lingers
The bug erased more than $3 billion from Zcash's value, dragging ZEC from a high near $527 to below $350 within days, during a broad market slump. The episode echoed a 2019 flaw in an older Zcash pool that was also never shown to be exploited.
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