Zcash Activates Ironwood Upgrade on July 28

Zcash is set to activate its NU6.3 'Ironwood' network upgrade on July 28, replacing Orchard with a new shielded transaction pool system.

The Ironwood upgrade follows the disclosure of a flaw in the older Orchard pool that could have allowed an attacker to create counterfeit ZEC without a public record.

Ironwood creates a separately tracked shielded pool, allowing nodes to track it independently from Orchard after activation. The new design also includes a turnstile between Orchard and the new pool, which prevents more ZEC from leaving Orchard than entered it.

The upgrade does not make current Zcash transactions quantum-secure by itself, but it introduces a new feature called quantum recoverability, which allows shielded notes to be recovered through a future post-quantum protocol.