Key takeaways

• BTC is down 2%, erasing the recovery earlier this week,
• US-listed spot ETF recorded an outflow of $173.73 million on Wednesday, breaking its two days of inflow this week.

Bitcoin faces continued losses amid weaker institutional demand

Bitcoin (BTC) prices continued to decline on Thursday, trading below $67,000, almost completely erasing the recovery from earlier in the week. Institutional demand also appears to be faltering, as spot Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) experienced a significant outflow of over $173 million on Wednesday, ending a two-day streak of inflows. 

This decline in demand coincides with a growing sense of bearish sentiment in the market, which is further amplified by US President Donald Trump’s recent remarks suggesting an escalation of the ongoing conflict.

On Wednesday, President Trump addressed the nation, warning that the ongoing conflict could drag on until late April. He stated that the US would take extreme measures over the next two to three weeks, including threats to attack Iranian power plants and send Iran back to the “stone age” if no agreement is reached.

These statements have dampened hopes for de-escalation, which in turn has reduced investor appetite for riskier assets. The US Dollar (USD) and Oil prices have risen as a result, while US equities and other risk assets have suffered, effectively erasing the gains Bitcoin saw earlier this week.

Data from CoinGlass indicates that institutional interest in Bitcoin remains uncertain. Spot Bitcoin ETFs saw a significant outflow of $173.73 million on Wednesday, following two days of positive inflows earlier this week. This suggests indecisiveness among institutional investors, who appear hesitant to increase exposure to risk assets amid ongoing market uncertainty.

According to Glassnode’s weekly report on Wednesday, Bitcoin remains trapped within a broad trading range of $60,000 to $70,000. While the market shows early signs of stabilization, it has not yet shown enough momentum to break decisively in either direction.

The report indicates that Bitcoin’s on-chain conditions reflect a continued period of repair, with elevated supply in loss and long-term holder capitulation still not fully resolved. However, spot demand has shown some improvement, signaling that sellers are not entirely in control of the market anymore.

Bitcoin Price Forecast: BTC could record further losses

The BTC/USD 4-hour chart is bearish and efficient as Bitcoin is trading below $66,400 on Thursday, erasing the recovery from earlier this week. The near-term bias is mildly bearish.

Bitcoin remains capped well below the clustered 50-day, 100-day, and 200-day Exponential Moving Averages (EMAs) between roughly $70,800 and $84,800, which reinforces downside pressure despite the recent bounce attempts. 

Currently, the technical indicators are bearish. The Relative Strength Index (RSI) on H4 sits at 51, just above the midline. 

The Moving Average Convergence Divergence (MACD) remains below the signal line, indicating persistent selling pressure.

If the market continues its decline, sellers would meet immediate support at $65,900. Breaking this level would expose the key psychological level at $60,000.

On the flipside, if the bulls regain control of the market, they would encounter resistance at the $69,200 level, with the major resistance around $72,600. 

A daily close above $72,600 would signal a bullish break from the sideways structure and open the door toward the 100-day EMA near $76,400.

Metaplanet (3350) continued to scale its accumulation strategy through the first quarter of 2026, acquiring 5,075 BTC for approximately $398 million, implying an average purchase price of about $78,000 per coin.

The Tokyo-based firm has has generated a BTC yield of 2.8% year-to-date.

As of March 31, Metaplanet holds a total of 40,177 BTC, acquired for roughly $3.9 billion, with an average cost basis of approximately $97,000 per BTC.

Metaplanet is now the third largest bitcoin treasury company worldwide, overtaking MARA Holdings after the miner reduced its bitcoin stack significantly.

Twenty One Capital (XXI) holds second place with 43,514 BTC, according to Bitcoin Treasuries, while Strategy (MSTR) is by far and away the largest with over 762,000.

Shares of Metaplanet were down 2%, trading at 302 yen ($1.89).

By Omkar Godbole (All times ET unless indicated otherwise)

Programmable blockchain Solana’s SOL token has hit five-week lows after an exploit at one of its largest perpetual decentralized exchange, Drift, underscored that security risks go beyond just smart contracts.

“If you’re building in DeFi, audit the surface area of your admin key. Not only the smart contracts,” Omer Goldberg, founder of Chaos Labs, said, explaining what went wrong.

Goldberg explained in his X thread that the attacker compromised Drift’s admin key. This single key gave the attacker god-like control — like handing someone the master password to the entire bank vault with no limits or alarms.

Using this power, the attacker created a fake collateral market for a worthless token called CVT. They maxed out the risk parameters so the system treated hundreds of millions of this junk token as safe, high-value collateral. In the same transaction, they switched the CVT price oracle to one they fully controlled, artificially pumped its value to sky-high levels, lifted the circuit breakers on major assets (removing withdrawal limits) such as USDC, eETH and others, and drained over $250 million worth of tokens.

This also worked because Drift features a single shared liquidity pool that holds everyone’s collateral and trading funds, providing a seamless trading experience. (Imagine putting all your money in a single bank account and losing everything in a signature hack).

The real issue wasn’t a bug in the code. It was the enormous “surface area” of that admin key, or the massive damage one compromised signer could cause by rewriting protocol-wide risk rules, assigning oracles, and disabling safety guards.

This isn’t the first time a compromised privileged key has led to big losses. Just 10 days earlier, Resolv was drained for $25 million in tokens after attackers compromised a SERVICE_ROLE key.

So, the message is clear: protocol safety now depends as much on strong governance and key controls as it does on smart contract audits.

As for markets, SOL’s near 3% drop to $78.30, the lowest since late February, is consistent with the weakness in bitcoin BTC$66,366.38, ether (ETH), XRP (XRP) and the wider market, as represented by the CoinDesk 20 Index.

The culprit once again is President Donald Trump’s renewed threat to Iran, which has sent oil prices higher. In the short term, these headlines could continue to lead movements in both traditional and crypto markets. Stay alert!

Read more: For analysis of today’s activity in altcoins and derivatives, see Crypto Markets Today

What to Watch

For a more comprehensive list of events this week, see CoinDesk’s “Crypto Week Ahead“.

• Crypto
• Macro
  • April 2, 8:30 a.m.: U.S. Initial Jobless Claims for week ending March 28 (Prev. 210K)
• Earnings (Estimates based on FactSet data)

Token Events

For a more comprehensive list of events this week, see CoinDesk’s “Crypto Week Ahead“.

• Governance votes & calls
  • Unlock DAO is voting to transfer 3 ETH to its Base multisig to swap for USDC to cover current and future operational expenses. Voting ends April 2.
  • Aavegotchi DAO is voting to elect nine multi-sig signers, maintain a 5-of-9 signature threshold, and set their quarterly compensation at $1,000 paid in GHST. Voting ends April 2.
  • Arbitrum DAO is voting across two proposals to transition its Code of Conduct and Procedures into living documents managed by OpCo, and to upgrade to ArbOS 60 Elara. Voting ends April 2.
• Unlocks
  • April 2: Ethena (ENA) to unlock 2.18% of its circulating supply worth $16.05 million.
• Token Launches

Conferences

For a more comprehensive list of events this week, see CoinDesk’s “Crypto Week Ahead“.

Market Movements

• BTC is down 2.53% from 4 p.m. ET Wednesday at $66,459.24 (24hrs: -3.1%)
• ETH is down 4.66% at $2,043.77 (24hrs: -4.16%)
• CoinDesk 20 is down 3.59% at 1,891.30 (24hrs: -3.81%)
• Ether CESR Composite Staking Rate is up 1 bp at 2.77%
• BTC funding rate is at 0.0001% (0.0635% annualized) on Binance

• DXY is up 0.51% at 100.16
• Gold futures are down 3.56% at $4,641.60
• Silver futures are down 6.47% at $71.15
• Nikkei 225 closed down 2.38% at 52,463.27
• Hang Seng closed down 0.7% at 25,116.53
• FTSE is down 0.08% at 10,356.15
• Euro Stoxx 50 is down 1.61% at 5,640.26
• DJIA closed on Wednesday up 0.48% at 46,565.74
• S&P 500 closed up 0.72% at 6,575.32
• Nasdaq Composite closed up 1.16% at 21,840.95
• S&P/TSX Composite closed up 0.58% at 32,957.95
• S&P 40 Latin America closed up 0.95% at 3,658.43
• U.S. 10-Year Treasury rate is up 5.1 bps at 4.372%
• E-mini S&P 500 futures are down 1.17% at 6,540.50
• E-mini Nasdaq-100 futures are down 1.51% at 23,830.00
• E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average Index futures are down 0.97% at 46,353.00

Bitcoin Stats

• BTC Dominance: 58.58% (+0.04%)
• Ether-bitcoin ratio: 0.03079 (-2.02%)
• Hashrate (seven-day moving average): 1,016 EH/s
• Hashprice (spot): $31.48
• Total fees: 2.55 BTC / $174,507
• CME Futures Open Interest: 107,610 BTC
• BTC priced in gold: 14.4 oz.
• BTC vs gold market cap: 4.44%

Technical Analysis

• The chart shows solana’s daily price swings in candlestick format with the Ichimoku cloud, a trend indicator, identified by the shaded area between green and red lines.
• The token’s price has crossed back below the cloud, indicating continuation of the broader decline. The pattern is similar to what we saw in mid-January, following which prices dropped sharply.
• Ichimoku cloud, invented by a Japanese journalist, is widely used to spot trend changes. Crossovers above and below the cloud are said to represent bullish and bearish shifts in trends.

Crypto Equities

• Coinbase Global (COIN): closed on Monday at $172.99 (-0.93%), -3.17% at $167.50 in pre-market
• Circle Internet (CRCL): closed at $90.74 (-4.89%), -1.59% at $89.30
• Galaxy Digital (GLXY): closed at $17.37 (-5.85%), -2.42% at $16.95
• Bullish (BLSH): closed at $35.07 (-1.85%), -2.79% at $34.09
• MARA Holdings (MARA): closed at $8.04 (-1.47%), -2.74% at $7.82
• Riot Platforms (RIOT): closed at $12.55 (+1.54%), -4.94% at $11.93
• Core Scientific (CORZ): closed at $15.30 (+2.27%), -3.66% at $14.74
• CleanSpark (CLSK): closed at $8.62 (+1.29%), -3.38% at $8.33
• CoinShares Valkyrie Bitcoin Miners ETF (WGMI): closed at $34.86 (+0.11%)
• Exodus Movement (EXOD): closed at $6.68 (+2.77%)

Crypto Treasury Companies

• Strategy (MSTR): closed at $122.78 (-1.62%), -2.09% at $120.21
• Strive (ASST): closed at $10.16 (+1.40%), -3.44% at $9.81
• SharpLink Gaming (SBET): closed at $6.46 (+0.16%), -3.72% at $6.22
• Upexi (UPXI): closed at $0.99 (+0.20%), -5.16% at $0.94
• Lite Strategy (LITS): closed at $1.13 (-2.59%), -5.31% at $1.07

ETF Flows

Spot BTC ETFs

• Daily net flow: -$173.7 million
• Cumulative net flows: $55.92 billion
• Total BTC holdings ~ 1.29 million

Spot ETH ETFs

• Daily net flow: -$7.1 million
• Cumulative net flows: $11.58 billion
• Total ETH holdings ~ 5.71 million

Source: Farside Investors

While You Were Sleeping

Trump stirs market, political angst with vague timeline for Iran (Bloomberg): The $31 trillion U.S. Treasuries market notched its worst monthly performance since late 2024 in March, with bond investors concerned that the war-driven surge in oil prices would ignite inflation.

‘We are going to hit them hard’: Markets disappointed, oil up again after Trump speech (euronews): Oil rose sharply and European stocks fell after Trump said in his first national address since the Iran war began that the U.S. would continue its attacks on Iran.

Gold, silver fall as investors doubt Trump’s exit plan (The Wall Street Journal): Gold and silver prices swung into the red, alongside industrial metals and equities. Spot gold prices were down 3%, at roughly $4,670 a troy ounce. Spot silver fell more than 5%.

The bitcoin treasury boom is unwinding as some companies and governments sell holdings (CoinDesk): Those who rushed into bitcoin BTC$66,366.38 over the past two years are now heading for the exits and it’s not a great sign for the market.

United States President Donald Trump has vowed to continue military operations as the country’s Middle East war with Iran enters the third week of intensified hostilities.

“We are going to hit them extremely hard over the next two to three weeks. We’re going to bring them back to the Stone Ages, where they belong,” Trump said, adding that the United States would no longer tolerate “state-sponsored provocation” against American assets.

Further, Trump noted that Iran has repeatedly violated the terms of every previous diplomatic deal and confirmed that U.S. forces are going to aggressively target critical infrastructure across the country.

“We are going to hit each and every one of their electric generating plants very hard and probably simultaneously […] We have not hit their oil, even though that’s the easiest target of all, because it would not give them even a small chance of survival or rebuilding,” he added.

The ongoing war in the Persian Gulf has rattled both traditional and emerging markets, and the escalation has led to a massive spike in oil prices immediately after Iran threatened to permanently blockade the Strait of Hormuz.

Since the war began, Bitcoin has dropped nearly 12%; meanwhile, despite its reputation as a safe haven, Gold has also slumped sharply as a surging U.S. Dollar and rising bond yields outweigh geopolitical fears.

Trump says the oil situation will improve

Trump acknowledged concerns over surging gas prices but downplayed the economic impact, saying it was a temporary ”short-term” situation and that he expects global supply routes to open up once Tehran surrenders.

“When this conflict is over, the strait will open up naturally. It’ll just open up naturally. They’re going to want to be able to sell oil because that’s all they have to try and rebuild. It will resume the flowing and the gas prices will rapidly come back down,” he said.

He went on to add that the U.S. Economy is “strong and improving” and the domestic energy sector will be “roaring back like never before.”

“Thanks to the progress we’ve made. I can say tonight that we are on track to complete all of America’s military objectives shortly. Very shortly,” Trump said.

Iran threatens retaliation

Even though Trump said that back-channel discussions for a ceasefire were ongoing, Iranian leaders have vehemently denied that there are any serious talks underway.

After the latest speech, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard has vowed a “devastating” retaliation, adding that so far, the U.S. and Israel have been striking “insignificant” targets.

A spokesperson to the Supreme Leader said the two countries have “incomplete” information about the nation’s underground military capabilities and warned that any further strikes would be met with “crushing, broader and destructive” attacks.

He added that the bulk of Iran’s missile production takes place in ”places that you do not know at all.”

On Wednesday, reports suggested that Iran has blacklisted 18 tech companies, including Silicon Valley giants like Microsoft and Google, stating they would be considered as “legitimate targets” in response to cyber strikes on Iran.

“From now on, for every assassination, an American company will be destroyed,” The Guard, which the U.S. designates as a terrorist organization, warned on Tuesday.

Crypto markets under pressure

Major cryptocurrencies besides Bitcoin—including Ethereum, XRP, and BNB—have started to drop sharply and have losses between 3-5% as of last check.

If the macro situation continues to deteriorate, it could spell trouble for the liquidity of these volatile high-beta assets, especially as Bitcoin is hovering very close to a major support area around $65,000.

If this support breaks, it could trigger a massive wave of liquidations, potentially sending the broader market into a prolonged crypto winter fueled by geopolitical instability.

Key Insights

• GENIUS Act defines state-regulated stablecoin compliance, allowing smaller issuers to operate locally while meeting federal oversight standards.
• OCC guidance establishes federal benchmarks, guiding stablecoin issuers transitioning from state to federal supervision after $10 billion circulation.
• Monthly reserve disclosures and uniform branding rules ensure consistent transparency and regulatory alignment across state and federal stablecoin frameworks.

The U.S. Department of the Treasury has released an 87-page proposal implementing the GENIUS Act. The notice opens a 60-day public comment period and outlines how stablecoin oversight will function across both state and federal systems.

The proposal details how the Treasury will determine whether state-level regulatory frameworks are “substantially similar” to federal standards. Smaller issuers can remain under state supervision if their systems meet the defined benchmarks.

State Stablecoin Oversight Must Meet Federal Standards

Issuers with less than ten billion dollars in circulation may opt for state-level regulation, provided their frameworks align with federal rules. The proposal separates requirements into two categories: uniform rules covering reserves and anti-money laundering and state-calibrated rules where local regulators control supervision, licensing, and risk management.

This approach allows states to maintain flexibility while ensuring all systems comply with the federal baseline, preventing gaps in regulation.

OCC Guidance Shapes Federal Stablecoin Compliance

The Treasury relies on the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to define the federal benchmark. Nonbank issuers that exceed the $10 billion threshold will transition toward federal supervision guided by OCC standards.

The rule also clarifies that state frameworks may exceed federal requirements, but they cannot conflict with federal law or reduce regulatory comparability.

Stablecoin Disclosure and Branding Rules Enforced

Issuers must publish monthly reserve composition reports to maintain transparency across state and federal systems. This ensures that disclosure practices remain consistent for all regulated stablecoins.

In addition, naming restrictions apply uniformly to prevent misleading branding. These rules align compliance across jurisdictions and maintain public confidence in dollar-backed stablecoins.

GENIUS Act Implementation Drives Regulatory Alignment

The rulemaking represents a key step in turning the GENIUS Act into an operational framework. Passed in July 2025, the law introduced mandatory reserve backing, regular disclosures, and anti-money laundering compliance for payment stablecoins.

Meanwhile, Congress continues advancing complementary measures, including the Clarity Act, to define SEC and CFTC oversight, although disputes over stablecoin yield have slowed broader market reforms.

A U.S. enforcement case against alleged crypto market manipulation is once again putting the spotlight on wash trading and the blurry line between market makers and market manipulators.

Federal prosecutors in California this week charged 10 individuals tied to firms including Gotbit, Vortex, Antier and Contrarian, accusing them of coordinating trades to inflate token prices and volumes before selling into the artificial demand. The case stemmed from an undercover FBI operation in which agents created their own token to identify firms offering manipulation services.

Defendants marketed strategies to boost trading activity that in reality amounted to pump-and-dump schemes and wash trading, leaving evidence that is far more common than expected, crypto experts Jason Fernandes from AdLunam and Stefan Muehlbauer from Certik told CoinDesk via Telegram interviews..

“Yes, despite increased enforcement, wash trading continues to be a pervasive issue, particularly among lower-cap tokens and on unregulated exchanges,” Muehlbauer said, while Fernandes stated, iIt’s far more common than most investors realize,”. They both agreed the scale remains high.

Gotbit Founder Aleksei Andriunin, included in the recent Department of Justice indictments, pleaded guilty to two counts of wire fraud and conspiracy to commit market manipulation last year, and agreed to forfeit $23 million. U.S. prosecutors described his crimes as a “wide-ranging conspiracy” to manipulate token prices for paying clients.

Inflating volumes becomes a shortcut

The details of market manipulation exposed by the DOJ are impactful, but the underlying behavior is not.

“Wash trading exists because in crypto, liquidity is perception,” said Jason Fernandes, co-founder of AdLunam. “Volume attracts attention, listings and capital, so inflating it becomes a shortcut to relevance.”

The mechanics are straightforward: coordinated accounts trade back and forth to simulate demand, often outsourced to market makers paid to create the illusion of organic flow.

It is far more common than investors believe or expect, particularly in long-tail tokens and on smaller exchanges where oversight is limited, Fernandes added.

“In many cases, it’s not just rogue actors. It’s projects, market-making firms and even venues themselves, all benefiting from higher reported volume.”

The DOJ said the firms included in their indictment used coordinated trading to inflate volumes and prices, ultimately selling tokens at artificially high levels to unsuspecting investors.

Recent research has repeatedly pointed to inflated activity across crypto markets. A Columbia University analysis of Polymarket found roughly 25% of historical volume showed signs of wash trading, while earlier Dune Analytics data suggested tens of billions in NFT volume on Ethereum stemmed from similar activity.

Wash trading still a ‘pervasive issue’: Certik

“The recent actions by the U.S. Department of Justice send a clear signal,” said Stefan Muehlbauer, head of U.S. government affairs at CertiK. “The ‘wild west’ era of crypto market manipulation is facing a coordinated, global crackdown. While these indictments represent a major victory for market integrity, wash trading remains a significant concern.”

Despite years of scrutiny, the incentives behind the practice remain intact, he said. Token issuers often face pressure to meet exchange listing requirements tied to trading volume, leading some to turn to market makers to simulate activity or deploy bots that trade against themselves.

“The ‘why’ is simple: illusion of value,” Muehlbauer said. “That illusion has real consequences,” particularly because artificial volume distorts price discovery, masks weak liquidity and can funnel capital based on signals that are not real. “High volume signals to investors and exchanges that a token is hot and liquid.”

“Victims are investors relying on that liquidity and high volume data,” Fernandes said. “Wash trading distorts markets, leading to “mispriced risk and capital flowing based on signals that aren’t real.”

Enforcement will benefit the market

The latest DOJ case stands out may bring a glimmer of hope to the industry.

“What’s notable isn’t just the charge but the method,” Fernandes said. “When the FBI is creating tokens to catch market manipulation, you’re no longer in a grey area. This is the U.S. signaling that crypto market structure is now firmly in enforcement territory.”

For market participants, the line between legitimate liquidity provision and manipulation is coming under sharper scrutiny, said the AdLunam co-founder.

Efforts to detect and reduce wash trading are improving. Regulated exchanges are deploying more sophisticated surveillance tools, while analysts are increasingly looking beyond headline volume to metrics such as order book depth, slippage and counterparty diversity.

Enforcement may ultimately push the market forward, although for now, the DOJ case shone a light on just how pervasive wash trading continues to be, undermining trust in crypto markets.

“Crypto is moving from a loosely policed frontier market to something that has to withstand institutional scrutiny. An irony is that enforcement like this may ultimately strengthen the asset class,” Fernandes said.

In Muehlbauer’s words, “the message to the industry is clear: what was once brushed off as ‘market making’ is now being prosecuted as wire fraud and market manipulation.”

Key Takeaways:

• Grewal’s signal: Coinbase CLO Paul Grewal publicly stated FIT21 would see legislative progress within 48 hours, the most direct timing claim from a major industry actor in the current cycle.
• What FIT21 defines: A decentralization test that determines whether digital assets fall under SEC (securities) or CFTC (commodities) jurisdiction – the central unresolved question in U.S. crypto regulation.
• The SEC vs CFTC boundary: Post-passage, sufficiently decentralized tokens become CFTC-regulated digital commodities; centralized issuances remain SEC-regulated securities.
• Market liquidity implication: Institutional market makers, RIAs, and hedge funds currently avoiding altcoins due to enforcement risk get a codified compliance standard – unlocking capital that has been on the sideline.
• What to watch: Senate Banking Committee markup targeted for April 2026; stablecoin yield compromise must resolve by end of week to keep the floor vote timeline intact.

BitGo has rolled out a new financing platform that allows institutions to borrow and lend against a range of crypto holdings.

According to the announcement, the platform brings together features like borrowing, lending, and collateral management to eliminate the need for multiple counterparties and fragmented workflows.

Instead of setting aside collateral for each individual loan, the platform uses a portfolio-based structure that allows clients to access liquidity from a combined pool of assets held in custody.

“We’ve built this offering to pair responsive, high-touch support from our team with an on-platform experience that makes financing easy to manage. That combination of flexibility, service, and control is what institutions have been missing in digital asset markets,” Adam Sporn, the firm’s head of prime brokerage and institutional sales, said in an accompanying statement.

Support for staked and locked tokens adds another layer, allowing borrowers to access liquidity without exiting positions tied to staking or vesting schedules, while still maintaining oversight of assets held in custody. Clients can also lend assets from the same account, either to generate yield or to free up capital for trading and treasury operations.

All activity takes place within BitGo’s custody framework, where collateral is held in segregated wallets, and credit is extended against assets such as Bitcoin, Ether, Solana, and stablecoins. Funds can be routed into trading via the firm’s brokerage services or used for broader liquidity needs.

Demand for credit against crypto holdings has risen over the past year, and this has led exchanges, institutional providers, and DeFi platforms to expand lending offerings tied to digital assets.

Some of the leading players include firms like Anchorage Digital, which, alongside Mezo, has introduced Bitcoin-backed stablecoin loans and short-term yield strategies, allowing institutions to borrow against BTC held in custody while earning returns on locked positions.

Meanwhile, in the exchange segment, platforms like Kraken have rolled out products such as Flexline, offering fixed-term crypto-backed loans, while Coinbase has reintroduced Bitcoin-backed borrowing in the United States, enabling users to access USDC liquidity against BTC collateral.

Zcash has patched a major vulnerability that would have allowed bad actors to drain funds from the protocol’s deprecated Sprout shielded pool.

A disclosure report from security researcher Alex “Scalar” Sol, published on Tuesday, claims that a critical flaw was discovered in zcashd nodes that resulted in skipping proof verification for transactions involving the legacy Sprout pool.

Zcash’s Sprout pool is the original “shielded pool” that launched with the network in 2016. It was the first implementation of zero-knowledge proofs (zk-SNARKs) in a production cryptocurrency, allowing users to send and receive ZEC privately.

Although the pool was closed to new deposits in November 2020, it still holds approximately 25,424 ZEC, which are yet to be migrated to newer shielded pool versions.

According to the disclosure, the vulnerability spanned releases from July 2020 onward but was fixed through v6.12.0, which was released on Tuesday. So far, the flaw has not been exploited, and user funds remain safe.

Major mining pools, including Luxor, F2Pool, ViaBTC, and AntPool, have already deployed the fix by March 26, the report added.

The report added that the Zebra full node implementation was not affected. In the event of an attempted exploit, it would have resulted in a chain fork, acting as an additional safeguard.

Despite the severity of the issue, the Zcash Open Development Team has clarified that the network’s “turnstile” mechanism, which enforces that any coins exiting the Sprout pool must have previously entered it, would have prevented broader supply inflation.

For the Zcash network, this marks the second time a critical, systemic vulnerability has been uncovered within its shielded pools. In 2019, the Zcash team disclosed a “counterfeiting” bug, a flaw in the underlying cryptography that could have allowed an attacker to create an infinite amount of ZEC without detection.