Zcash crashes 48% after Claude's AI finds critical vulnerability

[OmegaStarScream]

I'm not invested in Zcash but dear god, the whole crypto security is turning into one big shit show with these hacks. We went from vulnerable smart contracts and dapps getting hacked every other day of the week, to now even well established cryptocurrencies having critical vulnerabilities, in this case, the ability to create unlimited ZEC out of thin air[1].

With the release of Opus 4.8, I expect more bugs to be patched in different crypto projects going forward.  And it's probably going to be even worse once Claude's model Mythos gets released in the upcoming weeks/months.

[1] https://www.theblock.co/post/403698/zcash-vulnerability-zec-drops

[dansus021]

Crypto space is basically full of hackers or getting hacked. Take a look at this https://rekt.news/leaderboard   billion dollars worth of money just flowing away, and most of it is "Lazarus Group/North Korean hacker"
With the urge of AI and Quantum computer damn man Crypto is at risk. I just read the article and found the quick take

-A security researcher discovered a critical vulnerability in Zcash’s Orchard transaction pool that could have allowed exploiters to mint “unlimited” amounts of counterfeit ZEC.
Unlimited amount of ZEC god damn, and this happens after The entire Zcash Developer Team Resign. I do believe things get fishy from here.

-The vulnerability was fixed within days, and findings suggest that actual exploitation of the bug is unlikely.
the news said that the vulnerability has gone under the radar for many years, even under the scrutiny of the world's best cryptographers.

damn in my opinion we need full audit to other crypto aswell like ETH or solana

[Charles-Tim]

But we should make it clear that the vulnerability was not exploited. The vulnerability was found by zcash with the help of Taylor Hornby a security engineer.

Shielded Labs, an independent Zcash support organization, published the findings on the social media platform X on Thursday. It said it hired security engineer Taylor Hornby to conduct a review of the protocol in April.

I do not think the vulnerability caused the price of zec to fall. Zec is a very volatile coin. These bear market is the main reason I think.

[rbynxx]

I do not think the vulnerability caused the price of zec to fall. Zec is a very volatile coin. These bear market is the main reason I think.

I think it just fuel the fire because the market is weird and they'll get weirder when some news like these goes into the public. After reading it the price was still hovering between $440-$450 and I did sold, I know the market would react and it wasn't even US time when I read it.

Well, the network upgrade will take months as per zooko so I think the drama will continue, that is crucial for them to regain the investor's confidence. What's interesting over this issue was that it only been found using an AI prompt of Opus 4.8 which is a public AI. Truly fascinating, what could these AI's will found next?

[sergiorus]

I do not think the vulnerability caused the price of zec to fall. Zec is a very volatile coin. These bear market is the main reason I think.

When we talk about top-20 coins, 50% crash is not ''volatility".

Besides, ZEC is the by far the biggest loser in the last 24 hours among top-100 coins:


Maybe retail selling wasn't even as intense, but some serious leveraged longs were wiped and caused a cascade of liquidations.

[Charles-Tim]

I think it just fuel the fire because the market is weird and they'll get weirder when some news like these goes into the public. After reading it the price was still hovering between $440-$450 and I did sold, I know the market would react and it wasn't even US time when I read it.

The coin later fell more in price. I saw it at $245 today as other cryptocurrencies were falling and bitcoin fell to almost $61000 at the time, but the coins has risen a little with bitcoin at 62500 now and zec presently moving around $339. The coin fell more than 50% before increasing a little.

Edit:

Besides, ZEC is the by far the biggest loser in the last 24 hours among top-100 coins:

Zec fell from almost $800 to less than $190 when bitcoin fell to $60000 in February.

[noorman0]

-snip-
damn in my opinion we need full audit to other crypto aswell like ETH or solana

That makes sense; and thanks to the real case of Zcash, any developer should assume that an attacker possesses similar or even greater levels of AI resources. Considering that a formal manual audit lasting 4 years was shortened by just a few days with the help of AI until this vulnerability was first discovered, we never know how an attacker planned to completely destroy a cryptocurrency with a single protocol-level attack.

[virasog]

But we should make it clear that the vulnerability was not exploited. The vulnerability was found by zcash with the help of Taylor Hornby a security engineer.

Shielded Labs, an independent Zcash support organization, published the findings on the social media platform X on Thursday. It said it hired security engineer Taylor Hornby to conduct a review of the protocol in April.

I do not think the vulnerability caused the price of zec to fall. Zec is a very volatile coin. These bear market is the main reason I think.

Correct, ZEC has faced similar big crashes before, and if this was a vulnerability that still exists, then I guess ZEC would have kept on falling to zero.

Another thing is that the news have a big impact on the crypto industry. As soon as this was known that Opus 4.8 AI find critical vulnerability in ZEC, everyone pressed the sell button on ZEC without knowing what is the actual reality. ZEC was due for a correction and this news acted as a catalyst.

[taddus33333]

This is an interesting discussion about the recent developments in the altcoin space. The Zcash situation highlights the importance of security research in cryptocurrency projects.

[jossiel]

That's painful, I guess that people care more about the price falling than the vulnerability that Claude's AI found with ZEC.

From $500+ down to $300+ real quick and that's on proper timing because the entire market has fallen too.

ZEC was due for a correction and this news acted as a catalyst.

I agree, it's a coordinated news that became the factor for its crash lately.

[JeromeTash]

ZEC was due for a correction and this news acted as a catalyst.

Spot on. With this, I can confidently say you have observed crypto markets for a while now. Yes, the news may have lead to part of the nosedive but the biggest reason was that ZEC's price had to somehow retrace harder than most of the top alts because in the previous months, it pumped so hard more than its neighbours.

"What goes up so high must come down so hard."

[Abiky]

I'm not invested in Zcash but dear god, the whole crypto security is turning into one big shit show with these hacks. We went from vulnerable smart contracts and dapps getting hacked every other day of the week, to now even well established cryptocurrencies having critical vulnerabilities, in this case, the ability to create unlimited ZEC out of thin air[1].

With the release of Opus 4.8, I expect more bugs to be patched in different crypto projects going forward.  And it's probably going to be even worse once Claude's model Mythos gets released in the upcoming weeks/months.

[1] https://www.theblock.co/post/403698/zcash-vulnerability-zec-drops

And that's why no altcoin can ever outmatch Bitcoin. The pioneer cryptocurrency is, and will always be the best in terms of security/reliability. All of these "shitcoins" prioritize hype over real usability. It's why most of them are vulnerable against even the most insignificant attacks.

The recent news has come to my surprise, considering that ZEC is based on BTC's codebase. It has the same supply and everything. The only thing that changes is the privacy mechanism (please correct me if I'm wrong). While the vulnerability was patched, I'd expect ZEC's market prices to remain low for quite some time. The current "bear" market will only make matters worse. Time to buy or time to sell? Ultimately, you decide.

[TastyChillySauce00]

Everybody can run Claude Opus 4.8 against projects repo and find exploit easily now. The only way to prevent this is preventing such bugs from getting into prod or increase the audit interval.

It's really getting dangerous for many altcoins especially with weak security, I wonder how audit companies didn't catch the bug since I expected them to also use AI audit in their process. I think audit should be done more frequently honestly, and projects should run latest AI against their code to find bugs like this regularly.

[FinneysTrueVision]

And that's why no altcoin can ever outmatch Bitcoin. The pioneer cryptocurrency is, and will always be the best in terms of security/reliability. All of these "shitcoins" prioritize hype over real usability. It's why most of them are vulnerable against even the most insignificant attacks.

Critical security vulnerabilities aren’t exclusive to altcoins. Bitcoin has had two inflation bugs before. The worrying thing about Zcash and privacy coins is that they can have hidden inflation that remains undetected for a long time.

Zcash has other problems beyond this security issue, like the trusted setup when it launched and the founders’ reward, which diverted a portion of miner revenue to early investors.

[asriloni]

Just after this vulnerability was discovered. Zcash was frozen 85% of Zcash to push an urgent update to fix this loophole. So this clearly says how Zcash is basically not a decentralized coin. It's the reason why panic selling was happening last days.

I think it's already solved, and zcash is moving up again. I also say congrats for those who used this opportunity to buy zcash at the bottom.

It's easy profit for sure.

[m2017]

I'm not invested in Zcash but dear god,

What's the reason for this? Ideological considerations or a lack of trust in the coin's privacy?

to now even well established cryptocurrencies having critical vulnerabilities, in this case, the ability to create unlimited ZEC out of thin air[1].

Why all this panic over the sudden ZEC fall? This vulnerability wasn't exploited and has probably already been patched. What if bitcoin also has a critical vulnerability that the BTC-community isn't aware of yet (until they've used AI tools)?

With the release of Opus 4.8, I expect more bugs to be patched in different crypto projects going forward.  And it's probably going to be even worse once Claude's model Mythos gets released in the upcoming weeks/months.

Another reason for the entire market to fall?

[OmegaStarScream]

What's the reason for this? Ideological considerations or a lack of trust in the coin's privacy?
-snip-
Why all this panic over the sudden ZEC fall? This vulnerability wasn't exploited and has probably already been patched. What if bitcoin also has a critical vulnerability that the BTC-community isn't aware of yet (until they've used AI tools)?

This is a coin that has been around for almost ten years now. Having such a vulnerability would cause panic regardless whether it was exploited or not especially for people holdings large sums of it. One would also question the possibility of the project having more vulnerabilities and whether it's even safe to keep holding it.

If this was BTC, the damage would probably be x10 greater, and not just for BTC but for pretty much all of the crypto space. Can you imagine that happening when you have the U.S goverment studying ways to accumulate more bitcoin for their strategic reserve?

[virasog]

ZEC was due for a correction and this news acted as a catalyst.

Spot on. With this, I can confidently say you have observed crypto markets for a while now. Yes, the news may have lead to part of the nosedive but the biggest reason was that ZEC's price had to somehow retrace harder than most of the top alts because in the previous months, it pumped so hard more than its neighbours.

"What goes up so high must come down so hard."

Yup, most people don't understand this. The quicker the coin goes up, the faster it will free fall when it comes down because it leaves fair value gaps (FVG) and liquidity behind. If a coin move up slowly, the retrace will also be slow.
Despite of all the fuds, it is a good price to buy ZEC but not all at once, it can further move down as BTC still have to find a floor and with that the altcoins will also move down.