Zcash's cryptocurrency, ZEC, experienced a significant decline of 30% in value after the discovery of a critical counterfeiting vulnerability in its Orchard pool. The vulnerability, identified by security engineer Taylor Hornby on May 29, 2022, could have theoretically allowed malicious actors to mint an unlimited amount of ZEC. Although the Zcash Open Development Lab (ZODL) quickly implemented a patch through a hard fork on June 3, concerns remain regarding possible prior exploitation of the bug, which had existed undetected since May 2022. Following the disclosure, ZEC's price dropped to $410, resulting in a market capitalization loss of nearly $3 billion. Despite these concerns, BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes stated it is unlikely that counterfeit ZEC was minted, although he acknowledged the lack of definitive proof. The incident highlights ongoing vulnerabilities in privacy protocols, as similar issues have been identified in Zcash previously, including a 2018 incident involving zk-proofs.