- ZEC fell 40% from $611 to $307 after Orchard pool bug disclosed wiping $3B market cap.
- The bug existed from May 2022 to June 2026 potentially allowing undetectable counterfeit ZEC.
- ZEC whale held $174M without selling for six months and lost $70M in under 24 hours.
Zcash has fallen more than 40% from its recent highs after developers disclosed a critical vulnerability in the network’s Orchard shielded pool that existed from May 2022 until it was patched on June 1. ZEC traded near $390 on Thursday after briefly changing hands above $611 earlier this week, wiping more than $3 billion from its market capitalization.
The disclosure triggered one of the sharpest single-session selloffs in Zcash’s history as traders rushed to reassess the network’s risk profile. At the time of writing, ZEC is trading near $307.
The Whale Who Did Not Sell
Arkham data identified a ZEC whale whose holdings dropped in value by approximately $70 million in a single day. The address previously held around $174 million worth of ZEC.
The whale has not sold any ZEC in the past six months, meaning the paper loss is entirely unrealised but nonetheless represents a dramatic reversal from earlier this week when the same position was near its peak value.
The Trader Who Called It
While the whale held and lost, one trader went the other direction entirely. According to Lookonchain, Garrett Jin shorted ZEC while it was rallying and is now sitting on over $21.5 million in unrealised profit.
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The Vulnerability
Security engineer Taylor Hornby discovered the flaw on May 29 and reported it to developers at Shielded Labs and the Zcash Open Development Lab. Developers responded with an emergency hard fork activated on June 3.
The vulnerability existed in the Orchard shielded pool for nearly three years and may have made it possible to mint counterfeit ZEC. The pool’s privacy-preserving features would have made any such minting extremely difficult to detect, creating uncertainty about whether the supply was ever exploited during that period.
What Comes Next
ZEC is approaching a key long-term support area around $300. Whether the selling exhausts itself at that level or the breach of trust from the vulnerability disclosure drives further liquidation depends on how the community frames the emergency patch, as evidence of strong governance or confirmation of a deeper structural problem.
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