Zcash $ZEC holders have approved $8.39 million in retroactive grants covering security research, protocol development, and broader ecosystem work, according to results from OpenZcash's Q3 202
Zcash $ZEC holders have approved $8.39 million in retroactive grants covering security research, protocol development, and broader ecosystem work, according to results from OpenZcash's Q3 2026 coinholder-directed funding round.
The largest share of the approved funds flows directly from a significant security event earlier this year. On June 4, 2026, Zcash publicly disclosed a critical soundness bug in its Orchard shielded pool circuit, discovered on May 29 by security researcher Taylor Hornby through an AI-assisted audit. The vulnerability impacted Orchard's zero-knowledge proof circuit, and if exploited, an attacker could have created counterfeit ZEC within the shielded pool without leaving a discernible onchain record. An emergency network upgrade, NU6.2, patched the circuit on June 3, 2026.
The Q3 voting results show that both bounty proposals for Hornby were approved: one covering the $750,000 vulnerability bounty he applied for, and a second $750,000 community-nominated bonus, totaling $1.5 million. The funded recipients will still need to complete the KYC and fund disbursement process.
The Q3 2026 Coinholder-Directed Retroactive Grants round funded 17 of 37 submitted proposals, representing 93.1 percent of the $9.01 million requested. The program is structured to pay for work after delivery, not before. Retroactive grants provide funding for work that has already been completed and can be publicly verified.
Other funded security work included $425,000 covering five critical Zebra consensus-divergence vulnerabilities, a $400,000 award connected with a temporary detectable unlimited-mint-and-sell exploit, and a $150,000 Zebra vulnerability bounty.
Voting involved a substantial portion of the Zcash supply, with the largest single vote accounting for approximately 2.18 million ZEC, equal to 10.4 percent of Zcash's maximum supply of 21 million ZEC. That figure marks a sharp increase in participation compared with around 500,608 ZEC during Q1.
Sources:BlockSec: Zcash Orchard Soundness Bug AnalysisCrypto.news: Zcash holders approve $8.4M in grantsZcash Community Forum: Q3 Retroactive Grants Call for Proposals
