Arthur Hayes' “Holy Trinity” is dead: Exits Zcash after Orchard Pool exploit

Arthur Hayes has entirely dumped his “Holy Trinity” holdings by offloading his Zcash (ZEC) holdings on Friday. The privacy coin is down 13% so far on Friday, extending Thursday’s 26% decline after an Orchard Shielded Pool audit revealed a critical vulnerability that allowed the undetectable minting of fake coins. Hayes continues to hold Worldcoin (WLD) ahead of the upcoming SpaceX Initial Public Offering (IPO), on the chance of a “high-beta proxy” rally.

Arthur Hayes exits ZEC, shifting focus to Worldcoin

Arthur Hayes tweeted his exit from another major crypto project by dumping his ZEC holdings on Friday. The selling reflects Hayes meticulously trimming his crypto holdings after the sale of Hyperliquid (HYPE) and NEAR Protocol (NEAR) on Thursday. 

Hayes cited the counterfeiting vulnerability in Zcash’s Orchard Shielded Pool, which triggered a 26% drop on Thursday, as the key reason behind the sale. 

Zooko Wilcox, founder of Zcash, shared on Friday that Taylor Hornby, a security analyst, used Claude’s Opus 4.8 to find a bug that enabled undetectable minting of fake coins on Zcash. The vulnerability was fixed in a security patch on June 1, but it has negatively impacted the short-term retail sentiment. 

Although investigations found no exploits, ZEC fell on retail concerns that its privacy-by-design framework makes supply verification impossible. 

Hayes's exit marked the death of his “Holy Trinity” of Hyperliquid, NEAR Protocol, and Zcash, all built on the growing narrative of 24/7 trading of tokenized assets, AI, and privacy.

Still, the crypto founder-investor could repurchase the ZEC tokens as privacy remains a strong theme amid growing government regulations. “We will consistently re-evaluate our thinking and if my assumptions are proven incorrect, will rebuy, hopefully at lower prices,” said Hayes.

On the bullish side, Hayes is optimistic about Worldcoin, which is down 5% and trades around $0.50 at press time on Friday. In his recent essay, Hayes anticipates Elon Musk’s SpaceX IPO to trigger a “high-beta proxy” rally in WLD, supported by the fact that the unlock rate is set to drop 43% on July 24 and Eightco ($ORBS) holds roughly 283 million WLD, which accounts for over 8% of circulating supply, as previously reported by FXStreet.

Zcash slips below $400 amid intense selling

Zcash trades below $400 at press time on Friday, as the privacy coin has slipped below its 50-day and 100-day Exponential Moving Averages (EMAs) at $495 and $430, respectively. ZEC extends the sharp decline toward the 50% retracement level at $372, measured over the downswing from $750 to $184, close to the 200-day EMA at $367, which still has a broader uptrend-backed tone.

That said, the Relative Strength Index (RSI) dips to 37 on the daily chart, reflecting a quick shift to a sell-side dominance, while the Moving Average Convergence Divergence (MACD) plunges toward the zero line below its signal line, suggesting renewed downside pressure.

If ZEC clears the 200-day EMA at $367, it could extend the decline to the 38.2% Fibonacci retracement level at $315.

On the topside, initial resistance emerges at the 100-day EMA around $430.45, followed by the 50% retracement at $467.29 and the 50-day EMA near $495.22.

(The technical analysis of this story was written with the help of an AI tool.)