Zcash Activates Ironwood Upgrade After Counterfeiting Scare
In briefZcash has activated the Ironwood network upgrade, replacing the Orchard shielded pool with a new private pool.The upgrade prevents any potentially counterfeit coins from leaving the retired pool while preserving transaction privacy.Ironwood also introduces quantum-resistant transaction records and formally verified cryptography designed to reduce future security risks. Weeks after a critical vulnerability sparked a market rout and raised questions about Zcashs supply, the privacy-focused cryptocurrency has activated Ironwood, an upgrade designed to ensure any counterfeit coins can never enter circulation. The Ironwood upgrade retires the Orchard shielded pool, which holds roughly 3.7 million ZEC worth about $1.7 billion, and begins migrating users into a new shielded pool. The upgrade also introduces new accounting rules for Zcashs circulating supply while preserving the networks privacy guarantees. The road to Ironwood began in May, when security researcher Taylor Hornby, using Claude Opus 4.8, discovered a four-year-old flaw in Orchard that could have allowed an attacker to create counterfeit ZEC. Developers issued an emergency patch in June, but because shielded transactions intentionally hide their details, there was no way to prove whether the vulnerability had ever been exploited. The uncertainty sparked a sharp selloff, with Zcash falling 38% as investors questioned whether the cryptocurrencys supply could be