Altcoins News

Story: Zcash Weighs New Shielded Pool After Orchard Protocol Flaw Surfaces

By Bruce Buterin

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What the Orchard Bug Actually Broke. Orchard is Zcash's most recent shielded protocol, introduced as an upgrade over the older Sapling…

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Turnstile Accounting on the Table. One proposal getting serious attention is turnstile accounting.

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Community Debate, No Consensus Yet. Zcash governance has always leaned heavily on community input, and that's probably slowing things…

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A bug in Zcash's Orchard protocol has rattled the developer community, and now the team is seriously weighing whether to build an entirely new shielded pool from scratch.

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The flaw sits at the heart of how Zcash verifies its own supply. Zcash's privacy model depends on shielded transactions — basically, transfers where amounts and addresses stay…

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Privacy coins have always faced this tension. Strong privacy protections, by definition, make it harder to audit what's happening on-chain.

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One proposal getting serious attention is turnstile accounting. The idea, roughly, is to create a mechanism that forces funds to pass through a verifiable checkpoint when moving…

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It's not a simple fix. Turnstile accounting would need careful design to avoid leaking information about individual transactions.

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The other option being floated is a new shielded pool entirely — a fresh construction that bakes better supply verification in from the start rather than retrofitting it onto…

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Related: Arthur Hayes Dumps $134 Million in NEAR Protocol, Token Craters 24%

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That's probably the right call. Zcash's reputation rests almost entirely on its privacy guarantees.

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What's clear is that the Orchard bug has forced a broader rethink. It's not just about patching a flaw.

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Discussions are ongoing. The team hasn't specified when a proposal might be finalized, or whether the new shielded pool concept will advance beyond early deliberation.

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More context: Zcash Plummets 30% After AI Firm Reveals Counterfeit Vulnerability

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The Zcash ecosystem has navigated protocol-level challenges before. Whether this one leads to a targeted fix or a more fundamental rebuild of the shielded pool architecture, the…

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