Zcash Mainnet Deploys Ironwood Upgrade, Introduces New Privacy Pool to Enhance Supply Security

July 28th, according to official sources, the Zcash Open Development Lab (ZODL) has announced the activation of the Ironwood (NU6.3) network upgrade at the mainnet block height of 3,428,143. This upgrade introduces a brand new privacy pool designed to enhance the security of the Zcash network and allow the circulating supply's integrity to be independently verified. With the launch of Ironwood, the existing Orchard privacy pool will be restricted, and funds transferred from Orchard must go through a "gatekeeping mechanism" before entering Ironwood.

Zcash stated that Ironwood is an ecosystem-wide collaborative upgrade driven by a security vulnerability found in the Orchard privacy pool at the end of May this year. The vulnerability has been fixed through an emergency network upgrade, and there is currently no evidence that the vulnerability has been exploited, nor is there any evidence that user funds or the total ZEC supply have been affected. Building on the corrected Orchard protocol, Ironwood introduces formal verification and independent security audits to further enhance the protocol's ability to withstand future supply integrity vulnerabilities.

For users, existing funds in Orchard need to be migrated to the new Ironwood privacy pool, and wallets supporting Ironwood will provide a migration path. ZODL users can directly complete the migration through the latest version of the application without the need to create a new wallet or change addresses. Zcash stated that the launch of Ironwood will maintain privacy features while providing the network with stronger auditability and a more secure foundation for the long term.