Zcash Developers Approve Ironwood Update

Zcash team agrees on Ironwood update to launch new pool and limit ZEC supply.

The Zcash team has agreed on consensus changes for the Ironwood update. The upgrade aims to launch a new shielded pool and limit the supply of ZEC following a recent vulnerability in Orchard, reported developer Sean Bowe.

The old liquidity pool will be marked separately: after the update’s activation, new users will be prohibited from interacting with it, but the ability to publish logs with updates will be retained.

Wallets will stop accepting incoming transfers in Orchard and will direct assets to Orchard addresses already in Ironwood.

According to Bowe, this combination of rules will “limit the circulating supply of ZEC” and prevent network participants from spending “more coins than should exist.”

Ironwood activation is scheduled for July.

The Zcash Open Development Lab described the migration process as “simple for users.” Wallets supporting Orchard will be able to transfer funds to the new pool with one click.

The update is planned to be accompanied by independent audits to prevent new vulnerabilities from arising.

Ironwood will be the next step following the emergency fix of a critical bug in Orchard. The bug was discovered at the end of May. It theoretically allowed for unlimited fake issuance of ZEC. However, Shielded Labs stated that actual exploitation of the vulnerability was unlikely.

The fix was implemented in two stages. In early June, the team conducted a soft fork to temporarily disable transactions in Orchard, followed by a hard fork to restore the pool’s functionality.

In the wake of the incident, the ZEC price dropped nearly 50% at one point — to $300. After the vulnerability was addressed, the asset began to recover, and at the time of writing, its price is around $470 (+11% for the day).

Back in May, the price of the privacy coin broke the $585 mark for the first time since November 2025.