ZEC Surges 12% As Zcash Nears Proof Ruling Out Hidden Counterfeit Flaws

Zcash’s native token ZEC jumped more than 12% todayafter developers said they are close to mathematically proving the network’s privacy system is free of undetectable counterfeiting bugs, a flaw disclosed last month.

New Shielded Pool Nears Verification Milestone

Project Tachyon, the team working on Zcash’s upcoming Ironwood shielded pool, shared new details on its verification process. Zcash founder Zooko Wilcox said the project is close to producing mathematical proof that the latest shielded pools contain no hidden counterfeiting flaws. The news pushed ZEC back above $500, its strongest level since early June.

The rally follows a rough stretch for Zcash. A critical vulnerability in the Orchard shielded pool was disclosed in early June, sending ZEC down more than 40% in two days. The flaw could have let an attacker mint counterfeit ZEC undetected. Developers patched the issue quickly and said they believe it was never exploited, though the network’s privacy design made that impossible to confirm with certainty.

AI Speeds Up Proof Development

Project Tachyon said advances in AI-assisted proof generation have cut verification work that once took years down to just weeks. Former NEAR Protocol contributor Vadim Zacodil compared the situation to Bitcoin’s 2010 inflation bug, where billions of counterfeit coins were created but caught quickly because Bitcoin transactions are public. Zcash’s shielded pools, by contrast, hide transaction amounts, making similar flaws far harder to detect.