Zcash: Is Your ZEC Still in the Old Orchard Pool?

If you keep Zcash in a shielded address, there is a fair chance that since late July your balance has been sitting in a part of the blockchain the network has decommissioned. Checking takes a few minutes: bring the wallet up to the current version, let it sync fully, and see whether the app reports a migration in progress. While one is running, do not send your full balance anywhere.

The background is unusual. On July 28, 2026, Zcash brought a new shielded pool into service and sealed the old one at the same moment. Around 3.66 million ZEC were sitting in it at that point, the equivalent of about 1.7 billion US dollars according to CoinDesk. The network does not move that money on its own; every owner triggers the transfer in their own wallet. Anyone who has not opened their wallet since then has simply not triggered it.

Zcash Migration: What Has Happened to Your ZEC Since the Ironwood Upgrade

The network upgrade goes by the name Ironwood and took effect at block height 3,428,143. We retrieved that block ourselves on September 13, 2026 through the public interface of Blockchair: it carries the timestamp July 28, 2026, 14:07:23 UTC. Since then the chain has been running with two shielded areas side by side, the old Orchard pool and the new Ironwood pool.