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No New Blocks Were Produced on the Zcash Blockchain for Several Hours
The blockchain of the privacy-focused cryptocurrency Zcash went several hours without displaying new blocks after a critical vulnerability was discovered in Orchard, the network’s core private transaction mechanism.
Developers responded by deploying an emergency network upgrade.
Members of the Zcash community explained that the apparent halt in block production was caused by some blockchain explorers failing to update their nodes after the hard fork. According to ZecMiningPool, the network continued producing blocks normally throughout the incident.
During the night of June 2, developers identified the vulnerability in Orchard and temporarily disabled the affected pool before activating a hard fork to implement a fix. Miners were urged to update their software immediately to zcashd version 6.12.5.
Nodes that failed to update before activation could continue generating blocks rejected by the upgraded majority of the network, potentially resulting in a large number of orphan blocks.
The Zcash development team emphasized that the vulnerability was discovered before it could be exploited. According to the developers, the network’s privacy mechanisms remain secure and all user funds are safe.
Transactions using the older Sapling pool and transparent addresses were unaffected, and trading of ZEC on cryptocurrency exchanges continued without interruption.
The incident led to competing chain forks, with a blockchain split spanning 25 blocks. In total, 37 orphan blocks were generated by nodes operating on the outdated chain.
Third-party services were also affected. For example, the cryptocurrency wallet Cake Wallet temporarily suspended support for ZEC transactions.
Zcash, a cryptocurrency known for preserving user privacy and which gained 812% in value over the past year, was previously named the most volatile cryptocurrency of the year by analysts at CoinGecko.
See also: "Bitcoin mining difficulty has increased. What is happening in the network"
