HE HAD A TOOL THAT COULD CREATE UNLIMITED FAKE $ZEC. HE MADE $0. 🚨👀🛡️
On 14 August 2026, Zooko posted the pay question after the fix. 🧾
Taylor Hornby built a working tool that could create unlimited fake coins inside Zcash’s old private pool. He tested it only on a local node. He says he made $0 on the live chain.
He asked holders for $750,000 as a retroactive grant (pay after the work is already done). 💰
This is not a new pool launch. Ironwood is already live. 🛠️
On 29 May 2026 he found a counterfeiting bug (a hole that lets fake coins look real) in Orchard, the old shielded pool (the private zone where amounts stay hidden). The hole sat since May 2022. Orchard then held about 4.2M ZEC, worth about $2.3B. After the 5 June 2026 news, the token fell about 30% to 38% in a day. 📉
🔶 New private use in old Orchard is closed
🔷 Coins move through a turnstile (a counting step before coins enter Ironwood)
🔸 A 28 July 2026 math proof: more than 2,700 theorems against this fake-mint class
By 9 August 2026, Ironwood had passed Orchard (about 1.97M ZEC, about $1B then).
$750,000 is about 0.033% of that old $2.3B pile.
🟥 Wormhole 2022: $10M 🟧 Aurora 2022: $6M
🟨 Optimism 2022: $2M 🟩 Polygon 2021: $2M
The old bounty program had just closed. A second personal filing would double the ask to $1,500,000. Nothing is paid yet.
Next researcher chooses:
✅ report it, and hope coinholders pay
⚠️ stay quiet and try to print fake coins that nobody can see
Review ends 16 September 2026. Vote opens 17 September 2026.
If another researcher finds a hole like this next year, will $750,000 still be the honest choice, or will someone mint in secret? 👇
#Zcash #ZEC #Crypto #Binance
On 14 August 2026, Zooko posted the pay question after the fix. 🧾
Taylor Hornby built a working tool that could create unlimited fake coins inside Zcash’s old private pool. He tested it only on a local node. He says he made $0 on the live chain.
He asked holders for $750,000 as a retroactive grant (pay after the work is already done). 💰
This is not a new pool launch. Ironwood is already live. 🛠️
On 29 May 2026 he found a counterfeiting bug (a hole that lets fake coins look real) in Orchard, the old shielded pool (the private zone where amounts stay hidden). The hole sat since May 2022. Orchard then held about 4.2M ZEC, worth about $2.3B. After the 5 June 2026 news, the token fell about 30% to 38% in a day. 📉
🔶 New private use in old Orchard is closed
🔷 Coins move through a turnstile (a counting step before coins enter Ironwood)
🔸 A 28 July 2026 math proof: more than 2,700 theorems against this fake-mint class
By 9 August 2026, Ironwood had passed Orchard (about 1.97M ZEC, about $1B then).
$750,000 is about 0.033% of that old $2.3B pile.
🟥 Wormhole 2022: $10M 🟧 Aurora 2022: $6M
🟨 Optimism 2022: $2M 🟩 Polygon 2021: $2M
The old bounty program had just closed. A second personal filing would double the ask to $1,500,000. Nothing is paid yet.
Next researcher chooses:
✅ report it, and hope coinholders pay
⚠️ stay quiet and try to print fake coins that nobody can see
Review ends 16 September 2026. Vote opens 17 September 2026.
If another researcher finds a hole like this next year, will $750,000 still be the honest choice, or will someone mint in secret? 👇
#Zcash #ZEC #Crypto #Binance