Why Zcash (ZEC) Network Looked Offline for Hours – But Wasn’t

For a few hours on Wednesday Asia time, the Zcash blockchain appeared to have stopped producing new blocks, raising concerns that the network may be experiencing downtime.

However, several observers clarified that the issue was not with the blockchain itself but with block explorers, which were failing to update correctly.

Zcash Outage Scare

Earlier in the day, block explorers showed no new blocks after block 3,364,603, recorded at 5:28 a.m. UTC, for more than four hours, fueling speculation that the chain had gone offline. Directly addressing confusion, Helius CEO Mert Mumtaz stated that reports of a network outage were incorrect.

He explained that the network was fully functional and that the apparent disruption was caused by some block explorer applications being connected to a faulty node, which led to incorrect displays of chain activity. As a result, users saw no new blocks being reported, even though the chain continued operating normally in the background.

The misleading appearance of inactivity followed a coordinated network upgrade within the Zcash ecosystem that had been carried out to address a vulnerability affecting Orchard, Zcash’s latest shielded pool. According to a statement from the Zcash Open Development Lab (ZODL), the upgrade was initiated on the evening of Monday, June 1, in response to an issue identified in Orchard. Developers, infrastructure operators, miners, exchanges, and other independent participants worked together to temporarily suspend Orchard-related transactions while a protocol upgrade was implemented.

The process occurred in two stages through network-wide consensus. First, a soft fork was activated to temporarily disable Orchard by preventing both new Orchard outputs and spending from existing Orchard funds, helping limit exposure of sensitive technical details. This was followed by a hard fork to fully remediate the vulnerability and restore Orchard functionality, which required updates to the zero-knowledge proof circuit.

Once the upgrade was completed, Orchard transactions were re-enabled. ZODL stated there is no evidence the vulnerability was exploited, no unauthorized creation of value, and no impact to the total ZEC supply. User funds remained safe throughout the process, and the issue did not affect Sapling or transparent transactions.

The vulnerability was discovered through security audits by Zcash researcher Taylor Hornby, and the remediation effort was coordinated by ZODL alongside the Zcash Foundation and other ecosystem participants.

ZEC Momentum Strengthens

Zcash’s native token ZEC has moved against the broader market trend as it continued posting strong gains over the past month. The privacy-focused asset has climbed nearly 45% in that period and is currently trading near $599 after rising another 4% in the past 24 hours.

According to crypto analyst Ali Martinez, the TD Sequential indicator on the 12-hour chart recently flashed a buy signal for ZEC, which means that the upward momentum could continue. As long as the token holds above the $500 level, a potential move toward $642 remains in play.

Santiment identified ZEC as the most dominant topic across crypto social media, with seven repeated spikes in social dominance and a peak score of 10.02 recorded on May 20.

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