Zcash Ironwood upgrade is approaching as developers work to restore confidence after ZEC crash

In a series of Supports On the Zcash forum on Thursday, developers said the Ironwood upgrade to the privacy-focused cryptocurrency is nearing activation — first on a testnet — bringing the network a step closer to allowing users to verify the integrity of its traded supplies following last month’s disclosure of a serious counterfeiting vulnerability.

Zikash Network upgrade that introduces a new protected pool and accounting system designed to allow anyone to check the network’s circulating supply while keeping transactions private.

The upgrade aims to remove uncertainty exposed by the Orchard vulnerability in May, which left developers unable to prove whether fake ZEC was ever created.

Panic around the disclosure of the security vulnerabilities led to a significant drop in the price of the coin, which lost more than half its value within two days, falling from more than $600 to a recent low of around $300. ZEC has made up about half the losses so far, recently Trading at $457According to data from CoinGecko.

“At Shielded Labs, our focus has been on security, and in particular our new project, which we call Zero, to support enterprise users (e.g. mining pools, exchanges, wallets),” Zcash co-founder Zuko Wilcox wrote. “Our current focus within Project Zero is to help them prepare for a safe transition to Ironwood.”

The update comes weeks after security researcher Taylor Hornby used Anthropic’s Closing of business 4.8revealed a four-year-old flaw in Zcash’s Orchard protected pool that could have allowed an unlimited number of fake ZECs to be created without detection.

Although the developers patched the bug on June 1, Zcash Privacy features This means there is no cryptographic way to determine whether it has been exploited or not, which prompted Zcash developers to do so suggestion Ironwood to eliminate this uncertainty.

Since then, Zcash developers say they have made significant progress in enabling Ironwood in Zcash.

“Fast and secure activation of Ironwood on the Zcash mainnet is extremely important to our users, as well as the formal verification work we are doing in parallel to provide reassurance that there are no concerns about integrity of supply,” Zcash developer Sean Bowe books on X on Thursday, adding that “sufficient hashrate indicates technical readiness for a mainnet upgrade.”

“The notable concern is that some wallets will not be ready for the upgrade in time,” Poe wrote. “This does not justify delaying Ironwood, since there will be enough alternatives and enough time on the testnet for anyone who needs it.”

Jason McGee of Shielded Labs said development is focused on two parallel efforts: upgrading the Ironwood network (NU6.3), and migrating the Zcash ecosystem from the legacy Zcashd software to the new Z3 stack, which includes the Zebra full node, the Zaino indexing service, and the Zallet wallet.

According to McGee, development is moving forward on schedule, and the testnet is expected to activate the new consensus rules soon.

“The current goal is to complete both attempts by late July,” McGee wrote. “Regarding Ironwood, the teams at Project Tachyon, Valar Group, ZODL, Zcash Foundation, and Shielded Labs have been working hard and have made great progress over the past few weeks.”

McGee added that work is also continuing on formal validation of the new circuit, with the aim of completing proof of safety before Ironwood is activated.

The biggest challenge, McGee said, is preparing infrastructure providers to move to the new software stack. Key Z3 components, including Zallet and Zaino, are still under development, leaving exchanges, mining pools, and wallet providers with limited time to deploy and test everything before Ironwood is activated.

“The consistent feedback we have received is that completing the Ironwood upgrade and moving to Z3 on the current timeline will be difficult,” McGee wrote, adding that the latest survey had some participants “indicating they would be ready while others said they needed additional time.”

According to McGee, several options are being considered to reduce deployment risks, including delaying Ironwood, conducting independent third-party security audits prior to deployment, or temporarily supporting Ironwood through Zcashd while partners complete the migration.

“Ultimately, we all share the same goal of revitalizing Ironwood as quickly as possible while ensuring that our partners can safely migrate away from Zcashd,” he wrote. “We believe the focus over the coming weeks should be on making this transition as smooth and safe as possible.”