Zcash activated its Ironwood upgrade at block 3,428,143 on Tuesday, sealing the so-called “shielded pool” that holds most of the network’s private funds and opening a migration into a pool that starts from zero tokens.
Formerly known as NU6.3, Ironwood decommissioned the Orchard pool, which had over 3.66 million ZEC, or about $1.7 billion at current rates.
Trackers revealed that Ironwood had 0 ZEC during activation. A turnstile, an accounting regulation at the pool’s edge that caps all withdrawals at the amount verifiably deposited, is the only way out of Orchard. Each coin must be transported across by its owner.
The private side of Zcash, known as shielded pools, conceals participant numbers and currency balances. A zero-knowledge proof shows that the deposit amount is visible to the public.
On May 29, Taylor Hornby, a researcher at Shielded Labs, discovered a flaw in Orchard’s proof circuit that would allow an attacker to mint fake ZEC without leaving any trace on the chain. Since Orchard’s May 2022 debut, the bug has been there.
NU6.3 Ironwood Activation in 200 blocks!
Once live track migration status using:https://t.co/qrYsVaxA3w pic.twitter.com/X2VrzaCOu7
— Zcash 🛡️ (@Zcash) July 28, 2026
However, data suggests that exploitation is not the case, according to a July CoinDesk Research analysis. The natural course of action for someone who has created counterfeit ZEC would be to relocate and sell it, which would seem as money leaving the pool. Nevertheless, Orchard’s balance increased gradually throughout the course of the four years the fault remained there, even during the price surge of last year, when it would have been most advantageous to cash out.
The flaw was fixed by developers in a matter of days, but it was unable to account for the four years that it had been open. No one can demonstrate that counterfeit coins were never made, and the chain has no record of whether any Orchard transactions were moved since a zero-knowledge proof only discloses the facts it confirmed.
The solution to that is the turnstile. The network already knows how much ZEC entered Orchard and won’t reveal more as money entering or leaving a shielded pool is public even though the transactions within are not. Any fake coins that are inside are trapped there.
A tracker indicates that 1,500 ZEC have already relocated into the new pool as of the time of publication.
Additionally, Ironwood launched with two safeguards that Orchard lacked. Each coin leaves a record on the chain that is designed to be recoverable in the event that quantum computers someday crack the encryption currently protecting it. This feature is outlined in ZIP 2005 and has been in place since the first block.
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