How Claude Found Zcash's Counterfeiting Bug

For three years, a counterfeiting bug sat live inside Zcash's shielded pool, and no one noticed. Then Taylor Hornby pointed a custom Claude Opus 4.8 agent at the code, and it surfaced the flaw in Orchard that had gone undetected since 2022.

Austin Campbell, Ram Ahluwalia, and Chris Perkins debate what that means for privacy protocols, the rotation away from dead-protocol alts, and why Bitcoin's simplicity may be its strongest security argument yet.

The conversation closes on quantum risk and whether the Lindy effect holds up under the new threat environment.

Hosts:

Austin Campbell, Founder of Zero Knowledge Consulting and Adjunct Professor at NYU Stern - https://x.com/austincampbell

Ram Ahluwalia, CEO of Lumida - https://x.com/ramahluwalia

Chris Perkins, President of CoinFund - https://x.com/perkinscr97

This clip is from a longer conversation on AI, security, and the Zcash counterfeiting bug. Full episode here: https://www.youtube.com/live/oSUVTmC3wZo?si=zTopwWKi3ETPD5Rz

We go live every Monday at 4:30pm ET - subscribe to catch it live.

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Chapters

🤖 00:00 Chris on AI, security vulnerabilities, and the Zcash counterfeiting bug

💰 02:28 Should you rotate into Hyperliquid over dead protocols?

🔍 05:53 Claude Opus 4.8 finds Zcash's live shielded-pool bug

📉 08:16 The Enron analogy for a confidence crisis in privacy coins

⚛️ 12:30 Bitcoin's Lindy effect meets the quantum risk tension

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