Zcash developers have agreed on consensus rule changes for the upcoming Ironwood upgrade following the Orchard pool flaw that exposed the network to potentially unlimited minting of counterfeit ZEC.
In a Monday post on X, Zcash developer Sean Bowe outlined the rule changes, stating that the Ironwood upgrade will introduce a new shielded pool using the Orchard protocol.
Under the plan, the new circuit for the Orchard protocol — used by both the existing Orchard pool and the new Ironwood pool — will include a flag that can disable payments to other users within the pool while maintaining the ability to create change notes, a feature Bowe said "enables a privacy safeguard."
Once the upgrade is activated, the flag will be enabled for the old Orchard pool. Wallets will prevent new incoming payments to the old pool by constraining the "valueBalance" field, according to Bowe. With the design, new payments sent to Orchard receivers will route to the new pool.
Orchard is Zcash's main shielded transaction pool, which enables users to send and receive ZEC with full zero-knowledge privacy. The Orchard circuit is a zero-knowledge proof system that verifies that only valid transactions are included.
