Zcash Distributes Millions in Retroactive Grants After Resolving AI Bug Crisis
Zcash's AI bug crisis has seemingly passed, and co-founder Bryce Wilcox-O'Hearn, also known as Zooko, shared an update with a surprisingly positive note.
In response to the crisis, Zcash distributed over $8 million in retroactive grants, including $1.5 million to Taylor Hornby, a security engineer hired by Shielded Labs in April 2026 to identify protocol vulnerabilities.
Hornby worked with Anthropic's artificial intelligence model to detect a flaw in the Orchard circuit that could have led to the unlimited minting of counterfeit ZEC tokens.
The issue was addressed through a permissionless coinholder vote, administered by a nonprofit organization within the network, and the affected pool was sealed under Ironwood, activated on July 28, 2026. As a result, more than 4 million ZEC, equivalent to approximately $5.8 billion, were secured.