If you go down the Bitcoin rabbit hole and don't end up at Zcash, you took a wrong turn somewhere.

Shielded Labs worked with Anthropic to audit the Zcash protocol with Mythos using prompts provided by @DefuseSec. No serious vulnerabilities were found.

RT @zooko: Thanks, Anthropic, for helping protect Zcash users. At Shielded Labs’s request, they ran a security audit of Zcash with Mythos.…

Shielded Labs has extended Taylor Hornby's (@DefuseSec) agreement through the end of 2026. Taylor will continue serving as a Security Consultant, where his primary focus will be identifying security vulnerabilities and supporting remediation efforts for Zcash. Taylor will also contribute to the Ironwood upgrade. He'll focus on assurance, including security review and formal verification. His goal is to help ensure the protocol and code receive rigorous scrutiny before deployment and that significant issues are identified and addressed as early as possible. This work is crucial. We believe the number of security vulnerabilities being discovered across the industry will continue to increase as AI-assisted security research becomes more sophisticated. Our goal is to stay ahead of that curve. Taylor has spent years working on the security of Zcash, and his discovery of the Orchard vulnerability demonstrated the value of his experience. There’s no one we’d rather have helping us improve the security of Zcash.

RT @zooko: x.com/i/article/206309591285…

To get ahead of scams, if you're interested in donating to me for finding the Zcash bug, my addresses are in this post or in my replies below (be careful to check the exact username for lookalike scammers). Nothing else has been approved by me. Note: I intend to apply for a bounty through a Zcash coinholder grant, so donations are much appreciated but not necessary! Zcash: u1k6y9wpyc5m5ec3wz49ny9chewklyexn8rdj7928n3zswh0gwl0gh3zwwg37p76j7vrrv8s0dj8rhjfc49pg9yv9mjdea2sn86tnjh99a9424cdvw3aadyz8v40ddancr7e4kjzw07qhrcdez3d9sycx89f87vjw7eaxys2aktsm57tkp t1eykDAemzff7oPAA2E43Z47iawATB4bZRy Solana: D6c34hRcmhkHMXaAhoPXgVw9JYrh84saeSfYnk7ZSjeW ETH: 0x1b8203102aE3469a67E78FF9a78d8A5cC7E7e769 BTC: bc1qtxqv8fzj2pnewj2y5l8nh4ur4rkrvm2kv6mlp9

Really excited to audit the Orchard pool's supply with a very elegant and wonderful approach @ShieldedLabs suggested. More about that later today. But it's funny that the whole time we're fixing it I'm going be paying bills etc. with my Orchard funds! I love it. 😆

Zcash is strong and will get through this. The bug was found, disclosed, and fixed. There is no evidence it was exploited. It was discovered by a white-hat researcher whose job was to find vulnerabilities before attackers could. That's exactly how security should work. Over time, users can migrate to newer shielded pools that benefit from years of research, real-world experience, and lessons learned. Tachyon is expected to be the safest yet. The bigger lesson is that, in the age of AI, every protocol should be relentlessly battle-tested. We now have tools that can analyze code and cryptographic systems at a scale that wasn't possible before. Projects should use them aggressively to find weaknesses before attackers do. Finding a bug isn't a sign that security has failed. Not looking for bugs is.

Incredible transparency and honesty from Zcash devs. I'm glad they found this issue and moved fast to help the network get secured. There isn't a better way to handle these issues.

RT @zooko: @taminevg 🙏 Transparency is important to earn trust over the long haul.

RT @zooko: x.com/i/article/206264193687…

We are so happy. Shielded Labs—developers of Crosslink, and home of the legendary @zooko, the indomitable @aquietinvestor, and more!—have decided to host a red·bridge node. Decentralization leads to Unstoppable Private Money everywhere. Let’s keep going! cc: @mrkit2u @reddevinc

Shielded Labs has now funded efforts that helped to discover and remediate at least two major vulnerabilities in Zcash before they could be used by the bad guys!

.@brian_armstrong says it's surprising that crypto has gotten as big as it has... on a public surveillance ledger... and that it's time for crypto to transition from HTTP (full transparency) to HTTPS (privacy) We agree That's why we're building on Zcash

Eric Hughes on the need for anonymous transaction systems. If you read through it, he describes Zcash 23 years before it was created.

It's gonna be a big era

Zcash mentioned

People have called Zcash “Encrypted Bitcoin” and “Secret Bitcoin” And now “Perfect Bitcoin” Anon, what does this mean? 🤔

Legends say this is the most powerful meme in crypto