Alliance DAO co-founders lend their support to Zcash: “Like early Bitcoin”—the community fires back: “It’s already 10 years old, so how is it still early?”

Faced with the privacy token Zcash (ZEC) recently experiencing a collapse crisis after revealing a four-year-long "infinite minting vulnerability," Alliance DAO co-founder QwQiao posted on X today to show support, comparing Zcash's current situation to "early Bitcoin," emphasizing its extremely asymmetric upside potential. However, this remark did not gain community approval and instead drew heavy criticism and mockery, questioning Zcash's long-standing history and the flaw that privacy pools cannot be fully audited.
(Background summary: ZEC plummeted 48%, falling below $250! Zcash exposed to infinite minting vulnerability, hard to stop the bleeding?)
(Additional background: Grayscale Chief Legal Officer Craig Salm warned: Zcash vulnerability unlikely to be exploited before it is fixed)

The veteran privacy token Zcash (ZEC) recently faced its most serious "Soundness Bug" crisis since its inception. Security researchers revealed that Zcash's Orchard privacy pool has a four-year-long vulnerability that could allow attackers to infinitely mint fake ZEC, causing the token's price to drop sharply by 30% to 57% in a single day. Although the team quickly fixed the vulnerability through soft and hard forks, market confidence has been severely damaged.

As the community fell into panic and skepticism, Alliance DAO co-founder QwQiao (Qiao Wang) posted on X today, firmly defending Zcash. He boldly stated:

"Zcash now feels exactly like the early days of Bitcoin. There’s a group of the smartest people contributing to the project, and on the other side, some midwits. Despite bugs, existential threats, and vomit-inducing price volatility, if it really catches on, the upside is extremely asymmetric."

zcash is starting to feel exactly like the early days of bitcoin. some of the smartest ppl contributing to the project. some of the biggest midwits on the other side. bugs and existential threats. vomit-inducing price volatility. but also insanely asymmetric upside if it catches…

— qw (@QwQiao) June 5, 2026

Comparing the crisis to "early BTC," long-term believers remain unchanged

This is not QwQiao's first public support for Zcash. In March this year, he claimed Zcash is the last project in the crypto space capable of delivering a "1000x return," and suggested viewing it as a long-term asset for 10 to 20 years. In QwQiao’s view, the current chaos surrounding Zcash is not the end but rather a perfect reflection of Bitcoin’s early characteristics — top cryptography talent gathering, controversy and skepticism, and having faced a severe Inflation Bug challenge.

He believes that the Zcash team quickly identified and fixed the issue within days, demonstrating the project’s technical resilience. As global governments tighten privacy regulations in the future, Zcash with its top-tier zero-knowledge proof technology still holds high strategic value.

Community polarization debate: How can a 10-year-old project be called "early"?

However, this post, attempting to boost confidence amid the crisis, ignited fierce opposition within the community, attracting tens of thousands of views and numerous negative replies. Most critics mock QwQiao’s "early" claim, pointing out that Zcash has already been around for 10 years and is not some experimental project. A 10-year-old project with such a fatal bug is hardly convincing.

Moreover, opponents also pointed out that because Zcash emphasizes privacy features, the outside world cannot fully audit or verify whether hackers have secretly exploited the vulnerability over the past four years to mint tokens, meaning its scarcity of 21 million coins has already been compromised; some users also mentioned the controversial "20% developer tax" issue. Overall, aside from a few investors who believe in its high-risk, high-reward "asymmetric upside," most community opinions lean pessimistic, even suggesting this is just a "pump-and-dump" post by whales trying to support the price, advising retail investors to stay away and return to Bitcoin.