Zcash | Crypto

ZEC gained 45% over the past week, extending its rally since Grayscale converted its Zcash Trust into an ETF that began trading Aug. 25. Zcash (ZEC) climbed to its highest price since 2016, extending a rally that has pushed the privacy-focused cryptocurrency’s market capitalization above $20 billion. ZEC reached $1,249.28 before retreating to about $1,195 on Monday, according to CoinGecko data. The token gained about 45% over the past week and 138% over 30 days. The rally leaves Zcash below its launch-era record. CoinGecko lists an all-time high of $3,191.93 on Oct. 28, 2016, when only a small supply of tokens was available. Read more

Zcash broke above $1,000 on Sept. 4, pushing the asset value of Grayscale’s recently listed ZCSH ETF past $400 million less than two weeks after its debut. ZEC registered an intraday high of $1,050.70, up roughly 20% over 24 hours and nearly 100% over the past month. The move lifted ZCSH’s assets to $414.7 million […] The post Zcash breaks $1,000 as its spot ETF crosses $400 million in assets appeared first on CryptoSlate.

ZEC has climbed roughly 19-fold in a year, yet Grayscale says its sub-1% share of Bitcoin’s market cap leaves room for further upside. Zcash could emerge as a meaningful challenger to Bitcoin’s dominance among digital assets as the rapid adoption of artificial intelligence puts a premium on financial privacy and fuels concerns over AI-powered surveillance, according to Grayscale.  In a new research report, Grayscale head of research Zach Pandl said Zcash (ZEC) has “second mover advantages” that could help it challenge Bitcoin’s (BTC) entrenched network effects, something previous alternatives such as Litecoin (LTC) have failed to achieve. Central to Pandl’s argument is financial privacy. Zcash can shield transaction information, which Grayscale argues could become increasingly valuable as AI systems become better at analyzing financial activity at scale. Read more

Spendable shielded ZEC must be in Ironwood at the snapshot before the Aug. 25 to Sept. 14 poll. The post Zcash surges 62% to $880 as holders prepare to vote on changing how ZEC is issued appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Under a June 30 snapshot, a nonbinding 200,000-ZEC contribution would give DCG International about 34% of the enlarged fund. The post Grayscale’s Zcash ETF filing proposes a 2.5% fee and a potential 34% DCG stake appeared first on CryptoSlate.

The private placement gives Fortitude 9.4% at a 22% premium while HeartSciences’ vote date remains unset. The post Zcash miner buys 9.4% of merger target that warns failed deal could end in liquidation appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Only 5.38 million shares are initially issuable, leaving most of the deal's equity impact behind an approval gate. The post This public company now controls 18% of Zcash mining power after $33 million Winklevoss-linked deal appeared first on CryptoSlate.

The $33.3 million Winklevoss Capital deal expands Cypherpunk’s ZEC strategy as it targets 5% ownership of the cryptocurrency’s circulating supply. Cypherpunk Technologies is expanding its footprint in the Zcash ecosystem, launching what it says is the world’s largest Zcash mining operation after acquiring a mining fleet from Winklevoss Capital, signaling growing institutional interest in the privacy-focused network. Cypherpunk said Tuesday that it acquired the fleet through an equity-based transaction valued at $33.33 million. The mining operation is already online at facilities across the United States, producing roughly 4.2 GSol/s, or about 18% of the Zcash network’s current hashrate. If the company’s figures are accurate, the transaction gives a single publicly traded company a significant share of Zcash’s mining capacity. Read more

Zcash Labs launched Aug. 6 to move Zcash deeper into business and institutional use. The independent group is focused on integrations, infrastructure, and adoption projects for companies that want to use ZEC. Zcash Labs will front project costs and later seek retroactive reimbursement from ZEC holders with a 20% markup. Its first supported project, zcashtocash, […] The post Zcash is borrowing crypto’s new institutional playbook as privacy goes mainstream appeared first on CryptoSlate.

The company had $7.6 million in cash as its biotech subsidiary began seeking resources for Phase 3. The post Cypherpunk secures a $46M Zcash gain and turns a $4.7M operating loss into $39.4M profit appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Zcash activated Ironwood on July 28, sealing the Orchard shielded pool and opening a replacement pool under the NU6.3 rules. ZEC traded near $474 at publication, below the $500 area that held for much of July, and was 12.4% lower over seven days. Two months earlier, ZEC led one of the year’s strongest altcoin bursts, […] The post Zcash fixed the flaw that nearly halved ZEC, and $926 million in leverage now tests the rebound appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Zcash researchers published more than 2,700 machine-checked theorems designed to rule out undetectable counterfeiting bugs in Ironwood. Zcash researchers have completed formal verification of Ironwood, publishing a machine-checked proof that the network’s new shielded pool does not contain undetectable counterfeiting bugs under its stated cryptographic assumptions.  On Tuesday, Project Tachyon said that the proof, written in the Lean programming language, comprises over 2,700 theorems and took three teams of researchers and cryptographers over a month to complete. The work establishes a security property known as balance integrity, designed to ensure the shielded pool cannot pay out more value than has publicly entered it. The researchers said the proof covers the components needed for that property, including Ironwood’s zero-knowledge proof system, circuit rules and ledger-level accounting. It does not cover Ironwood’s separate privacy guarantees.  Read more

Zcash’s next upgrade will replace the once-compromised Orchard pool and may offer clues about whether counterfeit tokens were created via a recent bug. Zcash’s Ironwood network upgrade, the solution to an “infinity” bug discovered in May on the privacy-focused blockchain’s main private transaction pool, Orchard, is set to go live on July 28.  Announced in June, Ironwood closes the current Orchard pool, prevents new activity in it and sets up a new private pool. Funds leaving Orchard would have to pass through an accounting checkpoint before entering Ironwood, which could produce evidence about whether any counterfeit Zcash (ZEC) tokens were produced through the Orchard bug.  “Zcash's Ironwood mainnet activation height has been set and tagged! All of the major organizations are committed to activation of NU6.3 at height 3428143, which is approximately July 28th at 8AM EST,” Zcash core developer Sean Bowe said on Thursday. Read more

Shielded Labs said exchanges, mining pools and wallets may need more time to complete Zcash’s Z3 software migration and safely prepare for Ironwood. Shielded Labs has raised the possibility of delaying Zcash's Ironwood network upgrade, warning that ecosystem participants like exchanges, mining pools and wallets may not have enough time to prepare their systems for the planned activation in late July.  Jason McGee, executive director of Shielded Labs, said in a Zcash community forum post that two major projects are moving forward at the same time. Alongside Ironwood, infrastructure providers are being asked to replace Zcash’s longstanding node and wallet software, zcashd, with a new collection of tools known as the Z3 stack. The concerns highlight the trade-off between quickly restoring confidence in Zcash’s shielded supply and giving ecosystem participants enough time to deploy and audit the new infrastructure safely.  Read more

The all-stock deal gives Fortitude a Nasdaq listing while HeartSciences retains its healthcare business and existing shareholders keep a minority stake. Zcash miner Fortitude Mining Holdings is set to merge with medical technology company HeartSciences in a deal that will allow Fortitude to become publicly traded without pursuing a traditional initial public offering. The all-stock transaction announced Tuesday will see Fortitude’s management team assume control of the combined company, which will operate under the Fortitude name and is expected to trade on Nasdaq under the ticker symbol TUDE, subject to regulatory approval. Existing HeartSciences shareholders will retain a minority ownership stake. HeartSciences CEO Andrew Simpson hinted at the rationale behind the transaction, saying it would free the company from “the constant cycle of raising capital” while providing what it believes is the best path forward for shareholders. Read more

Zcash founder Zooko Wilcox said Anthropic's Mythos AI model found no further "serious bugs" in the privacy protocol following the patching of a previously discovered forgery bug. Zcash founder Zooko Wilcox said a security audit by Anthropic's Claude Mythos artificial intelligence model found no serious vulnerabilities in the privacy-preserving cryptocurrency's protocol. Requested by Shielded Labs, a Swiss-based non-profit supporting the development of Zcash, the AI security audit did not find “any more serious bugs” in the Zcash protocol, according to a Saturday X post by Wilcox. On June 3, Zcash developers temporarily suspended Orchard transactions after discovering a vulnerability in the shielded pool. Functionality was restored later that day through an emergency upgrade. Read more

Ironwood would close the old Orchard pool to new activity and route funds through a turnstile before they enter a new shielded pool. Zcash developers are proposing a new shielded pool called Ironwood after a recently patched bug raised concerns about whether counterfeit ZEC could have entered circulation unnoticed. The Zcash Open Development Lab (ZODL) said Saturday that it is working with Tachyon, Valar Group, the Zcash Foundation and Shielded Labs on the proposed network upgrade, which would add formal verification and independent audits to the Orchard protocol, a privacy system that lets users move ZEC without revealing transaction details. The proposal would close the current Orchard pool to new deposits and internal transactions, requiring funds to pass through a “turnstile,” which serves as an accounting checkpoint, before entering Ironwood. Read more

ETH price crashed below $1,600 as a vulnerability in Zcash emerged and Bitcoin sold off below $60,000 for the first time in months. Key takeaways: Ether (ETH) plummeted to a 13-month low of $1,540 on Friday, following the bearish trend across the broader cryptocurrency market. Traders now fear a deeper price correction, given weakness in ETH derivatives metrics and heightened risk after a bug was found in the Zcash blockchain. Read more

Zcash developers are weighing a new shielded pool and turnstile accounting after the Orchard bug raised supply verification questions. Zcash developers and researchers are discussing whether a new shielded pool could help restore supply verification confidence after a recently patched Orchard vulnerability. Shielded Labs, an independent Swiss-based Zcash support organization, said in a security update on Friday that it is exploring a proposed network upgrade that would deploy a new shielded pool and enforce “turnstile accounting” on coins moving from Orchard, giving users a clearer way to verify the integrity of funds moving out of the pool. The group said the proposal is still subject to further explanation and community review. Shielded Labs said it plans to publish a follow-up post next week explaining how the upgrade would work and what tradeoffs it could involve.  Read more

Zcash plummeted 40% after Shielded Labs revealed a major bug that went undetected for 4 years.