Did Zcash secretly print extra coins?

June 05, 2026

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Strategy’s Bitcoin doctrine faces its first real stress test

Key points:

  • Michael Saylor called for Bitcoin’s “disciplined expansion” through banks, credit, securities, and capital markets, while warning against ideological extremes.

  • Strategy’s 32 BTC sale, ETF outflows, and stronger U.S. jobs data have deepened concerns around leverage, liquidity, and Bitcoin’s demand reset.

News - Michael Saylor is trying to reframe Bitcoin’s next phase just as Strategy’s own Bitcoin strategy faces sharper scrutiny.

In a new essay, Saylor divided Bitcoin supporters into four camps: maximalists, capitalists, technologists, and fundamentalists. His argument was that Bitcoin should expand through banks, companies, securities, credit, and higher-layer infrastructure, while its base layer remains largely untouched.

The timing stood out. Strategy recently sold 32 BTC to fund preferred stock dividends, marking its first Bitcoin sale since 2022. The amount was tiny compared with its 843,706 BTC stack, but it challenged the “never sell” narrative that has long surrounded Saylor’s corporate Bitcoin playbook.

Leverage fears return - Grayscale Head of Research Zach Pandl warned that the sale intensified concerns around Strategy’s leveraged accumulation model. Weakness in preferred shares could raise dividend costs and create pressure for further Bitcoin sales if fresh buyers do not step in.

Strategy CEO Phong Le pushed back, calling most critics “perpetual haters,” but the broader market backdrop has made the debate harder to dismiss.

Macro pressure adds weight - Spot Bitcoin ETFs saw heavy late-May outflows, raising questions about whether institutional demand is resetting.

The U.S. economy then added 172,000 jobs in May, beating expectations, while unemployment held at 4.3%. That reduced near-term rate-cut hopes and added pressure on risk assets. Bitcoin hovered near $61,900, with traders watching whether $60,000 support can hold.

Zcash confronts an impossible question: Was extra ZEC ever created?

Key points:

  • ZEC plunged after Shielded Labs disclosed a now-patched Orchard pool flaw that could have allowed unlimited, undetectable counterfeit tokens.

  • Futures open interest hit a record high in ZEC terms as bearish bets grew, even though limited liquidations suggested the crash was driven mostly by spot selling.

News - Zcash’s latest selloff was not just about a bug. It was about whether a privacy coin can prove what its privacy is designed to hide.

Shielded Labs disclosed a critical vulnerability in Zcash’s Orchard shielded pool, which had been present since its May 2022 activation. The flaw was discovered on May 29 by security engineer Taylor Hornby using Anthropic’s Opus 4.8 model, then addressed through an emergency response beginning June 1.

The issue could have allowed counterfeit ZEC to be created inside the Orchard pool without a detectable on-chain trace. Shielded Labs said prior exploitation was unlikely, but also acknowledged there is no cryptographic way to prove whether the bug was exploited before the fix.

Markets priced the uncertainty - ZEC fell sharply after the disclosure, with sources placing the decline between roughly 30% and nearly 50% across different windows. Yet forced liquidations were relatively contained at about $118 million, suggesting spot selling played the bigger role.

At the same time, open interest in ZEC futures climbed to a record high in token terms, while long/short ratios on major exchanges showed traders leaning bearish. That leaves room for a short squeeze if selling slows and price stabilizes.

Developers look for a reset - Arthur Hayes said he sold his entire ZEC position, citing supply integrity concerns, though he may reconsider if his assumptions prove wrong.

Developers are now weighing a new shielded pool, turnstile accounting, and broader formal verification efforts to restore confidence in ZEC’s supply.

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Hyperliquid’s UK warning puts crypto perps under the microscope

Key points:

  • The UK’s FCA flagged Hyperliquid as an unauthorized firm that may be offering or promoting financial services to British users without permission.

  • The warning does not allege fraud or mismanagement, but UK users would lack Financial Ombudsman Service or FSCS protection if issues arise.

News - Hyperliquid’s UK warning lands at a time when crypto perpetual futures are becoming harder for regulators to ignore.

The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) added Hyperliquid, Hyper Foundation, hyperfoundation.org, and app.hyperliquid.xyz to its warning list, saying they may be offering or promoting financial services in Britain without authorization. The regulator warned users to avoid dealing with the platform.

The risk for users is practical. Hyperliquid has not registered or been authorized to offer financial services in the UK, meaning British users would not have access to the Financial Ombudsman Service for complaints or the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) if things go wrong.

A warning, not a fraud finding - The notice does not mean regulators found fraud or financial mismanagement. Similar warnings are routinely issued to overseas platforms operating in the UK without approval, and Binance faced a comparable warning in 2021 without disappearing from the market.

HYPE, Hyperliquid’s native token, did not show an immediate specific reaction. It traded near $62, down 7% over 24 hours amid broader crypto weakness.

Perps enter the policy spotlight - Hyperliquid’s scale has made the scrutiny harder to dismiss. The platform had brought in an estimated $255 million in revenue so far this year as of May 20, while its HYPE token was up 101% year to date.

The broader debate is heating up too, with CME Group CEO Terry Duffy warning that crypto perps could become a “disaster waiting to happen.”

Crypto rails power a $100M shadow peptide market

Key points:

  • Chainalysis said gray-market peptide vendors have crossed a $100 million annual run rate, with payments flowing mostly through Bitcoin and stablecoins.

  • Inflows jumped 159% from $12 million in Q4 2025 to $32 million in Q1 2026, driven by looksmaxxing, weight-loss demand, and overseas suppliers.

News - Crypto’s newest gray-market boom is not coming from darknet drugs alone. It is now being pulled into the wellness, beauty, and weight-loss economy.

A new Chainalysis report found that on-chain payments to peptide vendors have surged past a $100 million annual run rate. The market grew from roughly $12 million in Q4 2025 to $32 million in Q1 2026, with Q2 inflows on pace to reach about $39 million.

Peptides are short chains of amino acids used in medical, cosmetic, and fitness-related treatments, including compounds linked to weight-loss drugs such as Ozempic and Wegovy. Demand has widened through the looksmaxxing trend, where online communities focus on maximizing physical appearance through fitness, grooming, supplements, cosmetic procedures, and other interventions.

Stablecoins professionalize the trade - Chainalysis said banks and card processors often restrict payments tied to prescription-grade or unregulated compounds, pushing vendors toward crypto. Larger operators, especially those averaging $1,000 or more per deposit, increasingly favor stablecoins to reduce exposure to crypto price swings.

That shift suggests the market is becoming more organized, not fading.

Safety checks fall behind - The growth comes with serious safety concerns. Chainalysis said spending on independent testing dropped by an estimated 88% per buyer, even as more people purchased these injectable compounds.

The report also linked some peptide suppliers to Chinese chemical manufacturers previously involved in fentanyl or amphetamine precursor sales, including Shanghai Sigma Audley and Bigreat Technology.

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Crypto scams uncovered

  • One bridge exploit shook DeFi’s confidence: KelpDAO’s rsETH exploit in April 2026 drained about $292 million and triggered a wider liquidity crunch across DeFi lending markets, including Aave. The incident showed how cross-chain infrastructure risk can spread beyond one protocol when borrowed assets, restaked tokens, and lending pools are tightly connected.

  • A 2022 password breach kept draining crypto years later: TRM Labs traced at least $35 million in crypto thefts to stolen LastPass vaults, with funds still being drained in 2025 as attackers cracked weak master passwords and accessed stored seed phrases. It turned one old password-manager breach into a long-running wallet-drain risk.

  • A fake wallet address nearly fooled a whale out of $68 million: In 2024, an address poisoning scam tricked a victim into sending nearly $68 million in wrapped Bitcoin to a lookalike wallet address. The attacker later returned the funds, but Chainalysis said the scammer still pocketed about $3 million from token appreciation and had generated over 82,000 seeded addresses linked to the campaign.

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Top 3 coins of the day

Zcash (ZEC)

Key points:

  • ZEC rebounded to $332 on the 4H chart after crashing from the $600 to $650 zone, with the latest green candle showing a sharp reflex bounce from the $296 to $300 area.

  • The Elliott Wave structure still pointed to a damaged corrective phase, while the Awesome Oscillator stayed deep below zero at -165.63.

What you should know:

Zcash’s bounce looked more like panic relief than a clean recovery. The token had collapsed after the Orchard shielded pool flaw raised theoretical counterfeit-supply concerns, with uncertainty over whether the bug had ever been exploited hitting the project’s core privacy narrative. Arthur Hayes’ reported exit and more than $100M in ZEC liquidations added to the forced-selling pressure. The latest candle jumped from the low $300s, but momentum did not confirm a reversal. The Awesome Oscillator stayed deeply negative, while the Elliott Wave overlay still showed a fragile corrective structure with downside risk near $250. The $296 to $300 area is immediate support, while $340 and $350 to $360 are the first recovery zones to watch.

Worldcoin (WLD)

Key points:

  • WLD traded at $0.545 on the 4H chart after holding well above the Elliott Wave retracement zones at $0.453 and $0.411.

  • RSI cooled to 59.54, while volume stayed elevated at 36.41M as buyers defended the upper range after the fifth-wave peak.

What you should know:

Worldcoin’s move had the look of a crowded conviction trade that refused to fully unwind. After completing a fifth-wave advance near the $0.600 to $0.630 zone, price cooled but stayed far above the $0.453 and $0.411 retracement levels. The rally had specific fuel: Arthur Hayes’ WLD pivot, Eightco’s 283.5M-token treasury disclosure, and the upcoming July 24 unlock cut from 5.1M to 2.9M WLD per day. RSI eased to 59.54, showing momentum had cooled without flipping weak, while elevated volume kept the move active. The $0.500 to $0.510 area is first support, while $0.600 to $0.630 is the resistance zone buyers need to challenge again.

Hyperliquid (HYPE)

Key points:

  • HYPE hovered near $61 on the 4H chart after sliding from the $72 to $75 top zone, with the latest candle showing only a brief pause near the low $60s.

  • Bollinger Bars reflected bearish pressure during the pullback, while MACD stayed below the signal line with a negative histogram.

What you should know:

Hyperliquid’s chart showed what happened when a crowded winner lost one of its loudest backers right before a supply event. After pushing into the $72 to $75 zone, the token dropped toward $61 as Arthur Hayes revealed he had sold his HYPE position, triggering a wave of post-rally profit-taking. The pressure also came ahead of the June 6 unlock of 9.92M HYPE tokens, adding a clear supply overhang. On the chart, Bollinger Bars had turned bearish, MACD stayed below the signal line, and volume reached 21.95K HYPE during the reset. The $60 area is immediate support, while $63 and $65 to $67 are the reclaim zones to monitor.

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