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Researcher Finds Zcash Bug Adds Monero to Audit Queue, XMR Price Drops 10%

Security researcher Taylor Hornby plans to add Monero (XMR) to his audit list after using Anthropic's Claude Opus 4.8 to discover a critical forgery flaw in Zcash (ZEC).

Hornby confirmed this move when asked if he could examine other privacy-focused cryptocurrencies. His discovery of the Zcash flaw caused ZEC's value to plummet around 30% before developers released an emergency patch.

How AI Audit Discovered Zcash Bug

In April, nonprofit developer Shielded Labs contracted Hornby, who then ran a dedicated audit agent with Opus 4.8 on May 29.

Within a day, he identified a soundness flaw in the shielded Orchard pool. Anthropic had just released this model a day earlier, making this one of the first major security findings from the model.

The bug, involving insufficient elliptic curve verification, has persisted since Orchard launched in May 2022. This vulnerability allows for the creation of unlimited, undetectable fake ZEC within the pool.

The engineering team patched the flaw on June 2. Shielded Labs considers the previous exploit unlikely, but it cannot be entirely dismissed from a cryptographic perspective—a key tension in the disclosure of this Zcash bug with AI assistance.

Why Monero Became the Next Target

Monero is the largest privacy-focused cryptocurrency with default privacy features. Every transaction is automatically hidden, unlike Zcash which offers optional privacy protections.

Recent Monero network updates added privacy features and expanded the surface Hornby can scrutinize in the ongoing privacy crypto race.

He revealed that other privacy-based crypto projects are also on his list. Hornby also intends to submit a grant to Zcash coinholders to support the audit project.

“To be more responsive to scams, if you’re interested in donating for this Zcash bug discovery, my crypto address is listed in this post or in my reply below… donations are very much appreciated but not mandatory!” Taylor Hornby said in an appeal.

ZEC has now stabilized around US$363, recovering nearly 20% in the last 24 hours. At the time of publication, Zcash tokens are trading at US$373.27.

Meanwhile, Monero XMR has dropped nearly 10% and is trading at US$298.76 at publication time.