Zcash activated its Ironwood network upgrade at block height 3,428,143 on July 28, replacing the Orchard shielded pool with a new private pool. The upgrade prevents any potentially counterfeit coins from leaving the retired pool, which held about 3.66 million ZEC.
Zcash (ZEC) plummeted approximately 40% after developers disclosed a critical four-year-old counterfeiting vulnerability in its Orchard shielded pool, discovered with help from Claude AI. Developers have proposed the Ironwood upgrade to restore independent supply verification, with ZEC partially recovering about 45% from lows.
Zcash developers executed a two-stage emergency fix after discovering a critical vulnerability in the Orchard shielded pool that could have enabled double-spending, temporarily suspending then restoring transactions through coordinated network upgrade.
