Sep 30, 2026
Researchers at [[alloc] init] published a specification for Shielded Bitcoin on September 24, a protocol for private transfers on the Bitcoin base layer that borrows Zcash's encrypted notes and zero-knowledge proofs without requiring consensus changes or a soft fork.
21Shares listed Europe's first Zcash exchange-traded product on Euronext Paris and Amsterdam on September 22, trading as ZCASH with a 2.5% annual fee. ZEC spiked to an intraday high near $1,680, marking a new 10-year high and gaining 88% over the past week.
Grayscale's Zcash ETF (ZCSH) will undergo a 3-for-1 forward share split effective September 30, 2026, with shareholders receiving three post-split shares for every share held as of the September 28 record date. The move follows strong investor demand, with the fund attracting over $233 million in inflows since its August 25 launch.
Zcash developers are targeting November 5 for the NU7 upgrade, which would reduce block times from 75 seconds to 25 seconds, making private payments up to three times faster. The upgrade also includes changes to mining rewards.
Zcash price surged close to $1,600, while developers target November 5 for the NU7 upgrade that would cut block times to 25 seconds from 75 seconds. Grayscale announced a 3-for-1 forward share split for its Zcash ETF to improve accessibility.
A group claiming responsibility for a Revolut data breach is demanding 6,000 XMR (roughly $3 million) within 24 hours, threatening to sell stolen customer data including passport information and Bitcoin transaction histories. The breach reportedly exposed data on at least 680 customers.
Nearly 2.4 million ZEC tokens, representing about two-thirds of eligible supply, voted in favor of reducing Zcash's block time from 75 to 25 seconds and maintaining the existing halving schedule in Network Upgrade 7 sentiment polls that closed September 14. The proposals received 98.9% support from participating coinholders.
Zcash gained about 20% over 24 hours after Paradigm co-founder Matt Huang disclosed that the crypto investment firm made an unspecified purchase of ZEC. The rally came as Zcash holders voted to preserve Bitcoin-style halvings and speed up block times to 25 seconds.
Attackers compromised a legitimate Italian state email address to impersonate law enforcement and trick Revolut into releasing personal data of approximately 680-700 customers, primarily cryptocurrency holders. The hackers are now demanding a $3 million ransom in Monero cryptocurrency with a 24-hour deadline to prevent the data's sale.
Zcash (ZEC) jumped approximately 20% to briefly top $1,000 on September 4, reaching its highest level in nearly a decade and lifting its market cap to roughly $17 billion. The rally was fueled by strong inflows into Grayscale's ZCSH ETF, which has crossed $400 million in assets.
DeFi protocol Notional Finance suffered a $1.7 million exploit on September 4, with an attacker draining approximately $69,000 in DAI and $1.66 million in USDC from a legacy escrow contract through an integer overflow bug. The stolen funds were reportedly moved to Tornado Cash.
Zcash developers released Zakura Common, a new full node client that could reduce private transaction wait times from three seconds to under 200 milliseconds, representing a significant speed improvement for privacy-focused cryptocurrency transactions.
A federal judge has postponed Roman Storm's retrial to April 26, 2027, as the court weighs his pending motion for acquittal following his conviction related to the Tornado Cash cryptocurrency mixer. U.S. District Judge Katherine Polk Failla ordered the delay to allow time to consider the motion.
Grayscale converted its Zcash Trust into the first US exchange-traded fund offering direct exposure to the privacy-focused cryptocurrency, listing on NYSE Arca under ticker ZCSH with a 2.5% annual fee. The launch comes as ZEC has rallied 70% over the past month to eight-year highs.
Grayscale amended its SEC filing for Zcash Trust's potential conversion to a spot ETF on NYSE Arca. A Digital Currency Group affiliate is considering contributing approximately 200,000 ZEC to the trust in exchange for shares.
Nasdaq-listed Cypherpunk Technologies purchased 4,902 mining machines from Winklevoss Capital for $33.33 million, giving the company approximately 18% of Zcash's total network mining power and establishing it as the largest Zcash miner globally.
Roman Storm, convicted co-founder of cryptocurrency privacy protocol Tornado Cash, is challenging his conviction by arguing that Google and OpenAI should face similar liability since their AI tools are also used by the same North Korean operatives cited in the government's case against him.
Mysten Labs has introduced Tessera, a business-to-business settlement prototype built on the Sui blockchain that enables confidential invoice payments by hiding transaction amounts while maintaining controlled access for counterparties, regulators, and auditors.
Crypto payment processor Coinsbuy was hit by a security breach on August 9, 2026, draining over $7.9 million from wallets across Ethereum and TRON networks. The attacker converted stolen assets into Monero, a privacy-focused cryptocurrency that complicates transaction tracing.
Zero-knowledge proof technology, which allows users to verify information without revealing underlying data, is emerging as a key privacy solution in blockchain systems. Midnight blockchain is highlighted as a leading implementation enabling compliance and identity verification without data exposure.
Fortitude Mining Holdings, the Zcash mining subsidiary of Digital Currency Group, completed the acquisition of a 12.5 megawatt digital infrastructure facility in Prosser, Nebraska for $6.25 million in cash, with a net outlay of approximately $4.7 million after credits.
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.
A security breach in Wanchain's bridge connecting Cardano to BNB Chain resulted in the theft of between 290-515 million NIGHT tokens (valued at approximately $10M), causing the Midnight privacy network token to plunge 43% to a record low of $0.01524 before rebounding 19%. Seven major exchanges have frozen stolen funds.
An opinion article in China's Supreme People's Procuratorate newspaper outlined a framework for prosecuting crypto money laundering, including presuming criminal intent when mixers or privacy coins are used.
Privacy coin Zcash experienced a dramatic rally, adding between $1-2.5 billion to its market capitalization after founder Zooko Wilcox unveiled the 'Ironwood' upgrade proposal designed to address long-standing concerns about the cryptocurrency's supply verification.
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.
Privacy-focused cryptocurrency Zcash crashed 38% after Shielded Labs disclosed a critical bug in its Orchard shielded pool that could have enabled unlimited counterfeit token creation. The vulnerability, which went undetected for four years, was discovered through an AI-assisted audit using Anthropic's Claude Opus 4.8.
Sui has launched confidential transfer capabilities using range proofs to enable private transactions while maintaining supply controls, as law enforcement agencies warn of increasing cryptocurrency scams targeting soccer fans through fake FIFA websites during the World Cup.
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.
Litecoin underwent a chain reorganization spanning more than three hours to undo its first major privacy-layer exploit, with attackers attempting double-spends against cross-chain swap protocols during the fork window.