Zcash (ZEC) spent last week as one of the only major cryptocurrencies resisting a broad market selloff, continuing a run of more than 750% gains over the past year. This streak ended when doubts about the coin’s supply, a crucial factor for any privacy coin, began to surface.
Zcash Patched the Orchard Bug, the Doubt Remains
The turning point came when a major flaw was found in Orchard, Zcash’s most advanced shielded pool. This bug, present since May 2022 and discovered on May 29, 2026, during a Shielded Labs audit conducted by Taylor Hornby, could have enabled the minting of unlimited, undetectable counterfeit ZEC coins.
However, on June 2, Zcash developers launched an emergency soft fork at block 3,363,426 to disable Orchard and prevent potential double spending, while ZEC traded near $587. The next day, the NU6.2 hard fork re-enabled Orchard with a patched circuit.
Block explorers were offline for about four hours, and social media was filled with messages saying “ZCASH IS DOWN.” However, the blockchain itself kept running, and the Zcash price even jumped to around $629 before dropping sharply.
Although the patch worked, doubts remained. Orchard’s privacy features make it impossible to prove with certainty that no counterfeit coins were created before the fix, so audits cannot fully resolve the issue.
Craig Salm argued that exploiting the bug without being noticed would have meant outsmarting the entire core development team and then choosing not to sell fake coins during a huge price rally, which he saw as unlikely. Still, the market reacted quickly.
Arthur Hayes, co-founder of BitMEX, sold all his ZEC holdings, along with his positions in HYPE and NEAR. He admitted that while it was unlikely anyone had created counterfeit coins, it could not be proven impossible, which is a critical issue for a privacy asset. His exit added to the wave of sellers.
Zcash Price Loses $520 Support and Its 200-Day Average
Zcash price fell below $520, the neckline of a head-and-shoulders pattern formed in May and early June. This turned the initial panic into more automatic selling. The pattern suggested a drop of about $160, from the $680 peak to the $520 neckline, pointing to a target near $360, which the price has already reached.
The privacy coin dropped as much as 50% in 24 hours, hitting a low of $324.10 before recovering to around $340. ZEC was the biggest loser in the market today, with AI token Venice (VVV)’s 20% drop the next-largest. Trading volume jumped to over $2.05 billion, up 54%, with a 33% turnover compared to its $5.94 billion market cap. This suggests investors were forced to sell rather than buy more.
Also, all moving averages from the 10- to the 200-period now signal a sell, except for the Ichimoku baseline, which remains neutral. The price has dropped below both its 200-day simple moving average at about $381 and its exponential moving average at about $367. The RSI is at 33.62, close to oversold territory, but has not crossed that line yet, which means further downside is still likely.
Now, any Zcash price prediction depends on whether Shielded Labs can upgrade the network to verify the total supply and prove that no counterfeit Zcash coins exist. Since the ZEC price crash has already happened, the main question is whether the $360-$320 range will hold or the previous low of $200 from February will return. Until the supply issue is resolved, Zcash (ZEC) will likely trade based on uncertainty.
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