Zcash plans to launch an Ironwood upgrade at the end of July 2026 to introduce a new privacy pool and enhance total supply verifiability

Zcash Open Development Lab (ZODL), in conjunction with Tachyon, Valar Group, Zcash Foundation and ShielddLabs, proposes to launch a new network upgrade and shielding pool called "Ironwood", which is scheduled to be activated by the end of July 2026. The specific timing will depend on the progress of testing and ecological coordination. Ironwood will continue to maintain the existing Orchard protocol, but add formal verification and independent security audits, and verify all ZEC supplies transferred from Orchard to Ironwood through the "Turnstile" mechanism, allowing anyone to audit the circulating supply of Zcash, thereby further enhancing the security and transparency of the protocol. ZODL said that the recently discovered Orchard integrity vulnerability was discovered in ongoing security research and has been fixed through coordinated upgrades. There is currently no evidence that the vulnerability has been exploited, nor is there any indication that user funds have been damaged or ZEC's total supply has changed. Related issues have not affected the privacy attributes of any privacy pool, and Orchard is still operating normally. According to the plan, the upgraded Orchard pool will close new deposits and internal transactions, and funds can only be moved to Ironwood through the Turnstile mechanism. Wallets that support Orchard will provide one-click migration capabilities, and the new privacy pool will continue to use the user's existing Orchard address without changing the billing address. In addition, ZODL is advancing the decommissioning of zcashd, including developing a new command-line wallet, Zallet, assisting node operators in migrating to Zebrad, and updating wallets and SDKs to support Ironwood upgrades.