ZEC Rises 41.5% After Critical Network Vulnerability
Zcash Open Development Lab (ZODL) founder Josh Swihart reported that a critical vulnerability in the Orchard shielded pool had been fixed. Against this backdrop, the asset’s price began to recover after a major decline.
According to Swihart, the fix was implemented in two stages. First, the team carried out a soft fork to temporarily disable transactions in Orchard. This made it possible to reduce the risks of bug exploitation without prematurely disclosing technical details.
The second stage was the NU6.2 hard fork, activated on June 3. After the upgrade, the pool’s functionality was fully restored.
The critical flaw in the Proof-of-Concept Orchard scheme was discovered by independent researcher Taylor Hornby during an audit for Shielded Labs. The bug theoretically allowed unlimited counterfeit $ZEC issuance. However, Shielded Labs said actual exploitation of the vulnerability was unlikely.
Following the disclosure on June 4, the price of the privacy coin collapsed by more than 50%. The incident triggered a wave of criticism from community members. In particular, BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes said he had fully liquidated his position in the token.
During the remediation process, ZODL coordinated with the ViaBTC and Foundry mining pools, as well as exchanges, to conduct code reviews of the fixes.
“We not only solved the problem, but also tested incident response processes in practice, strengthening the network’s resilience,” Swihart emphasised.
At the time of writing, $ZEC is trading at $429.08. Over the past 24 hours, the privacy coin has gained 13.5%, recovering 41.5% from its June 5 lows.

Hourly $ZEC/USDT chart on Binance. Source: TradingView.
In parallel, ZODL, together with the Zcash Foundation and Shielded Labs, presented a proposal to upgrade the network and create a new Ironwood pool. It is expected to be based on Orchard, but will undergo additional independent audits and formal verification.
As a reminder, in May the privacy coin’s price broke above $585 for the first time since November 2025.
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