Zcash (ZEC) rallied 25% over the past 24 hours after founder Zooko Wilcox-O’Hearn announced that Anthropic had completed a security audit of the Zcash protocol using its Mythos AI model and found no serious vulnerabilities.

The review was conducted at the request of Shielded Labs, a key contributor to the Zcash ecosystem, Wilcox-O’Hearn said.

Thanks, Anthropic, for helping protect Zcash users. At Shielded Labs’s request, they ran a security audit of Zcash with Mythos. It did not find any more serious bugs in the Zcash protocol. Shielded Labs and others are continuing security hardening work. Stay tuned for updates.

— zooko🛡🦓🦓🦓 ⓩ (@zooko) June 12, 2026

ZEC traded above $530 at press time, up nearly 30% following Wilcox-O’Hearn’s statement, per CoinGecko. The asset has also posted a dramatic long-term gain, rising more than 1,100% over the past year.

Orchard vulnerability sent ZEC into sharp selloff

Zcash suffered a dramatic market selloff after developers disclosed a critical vulnerability in its Orchard shielded pool, sending ZEC down approximately 50% as investors reacted to the possibility of undetectable counterfeiting.

The vulnerability was discovered on May 29 by security researcher Taylor Hornby during a targeted security engagement conducted for Shielded Labs. After receiving the disclosure, Zcash Open Development Lab led a coordinated ecosystem response and deployed an emergency fix by June 1.

Developers move to address concerns after Orchard vulnerability

On June 14, Shielded Labs released a comprehensive assessment of the Orchard vulnerability, outlining its potential impact on Zcash users and the measures being taken to restore verifiable confidence in the network’s supply.

While certainty is impossible, the team believes exploitation is unlikely. The vulnerability was uncovered through a deliberate research effort involving advanced AI-assisted security analysis, and developers quickly coordinated mitigation measures following its discovery. The absence of any evidence of suspicious fund movements further supports the view that the flaw was not actively abused.

Based on that assessment, Shielded Labs believes legitimate Orchard funds remain recoverable. The team noted that users considering moving funds out of Orchard should carefully weigh privacy and security considerations, including the trade-offs between transparent addresses, Sapling shielded transfers, and custodial solutions.

The report identified supply verification as the key unresolved issue. Although Shielded Labs believes Zcash’s supply remains uncompromised, users currently lack a direct mechanism to verify this independently.

The proposed Ironwood network upgrade addresses this challenge by sealing the Orchard pool and ensuring that excess funds, if they exist, cannot continue circulating. This would restore transparent verification of Zcash’s monetary limits at the protocol level, as noted by the team.

Shielded Labs said it has partnered with multiple researchers and organizations to conduct extensive audits of the protocol, including reviews assisted by advanced AI systems. No additional counterfeiting vulnerabilities have been discovered so far, and further initiatives are underway to provide stronger assurances regarding the security of the network.

According to Shielded Labs, Ironwood ultimately shifts trust away from expert assessment and back toward cryptographic verification, allowing users to independently confirm the integrity of the Zcash supply.