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How much ZEC is in the Orchard pool?
The Zcash Orchard pool holds 2,451,444 ZEC — 14.5% of the total ZEC supply, 56.4% of all shielded ZEC, and $1.21B at the current ZEC price. The pool is sealed: it accepts no new shielded transactions, so that balance can only fall.
Balances come from the chain tip rather than an hourly rollup, and the stamp is the instant the balance describes: 2026-08-06 16:54 UTC. A figure ZecStats cannot source is left blank rather than estimated, and a degraded source is stamped stale with a visible warning.
Background
What is the Orchard pool?
Orchard is one of Zcash's shielded pools — a portion of the ZEC supply held inside a zero-knowledge circuit, where addresses, amounts and the transaction graph are encrypted on-chain and only the pool's total balance is public. It arrived in 2022 with the NU5 upgrade and, until it sealed, carried the large majority of shielded ZEC. Each Zcash pool corresponds to a generation of cryptography: Sprout (2016), Sapling (2018), Orchard (2022), Ironwood (2026).
Halo 2 proofs
Orchard was Zcash's first pool built on Halo 2 — recursive proof composition, and a clean break from the proving system Sapling used.
No trusted setup
Sprout and Sapling needed multi-party ceremonies to generate their parameters. Orchard needed none, removing a whole class of assumption from Zcash's security story.
Unified addresses
Orchard is the pool behind Zcash unified addresses — a single address string carrying several receiver types, so senders stop picking a pool by hand.
The 2022–2026 default
From NU5 until NU6.3, Orchard is where new shielded ZEC landed. That is why the sealed balance is large: 3,649,240 ZEC was inside the pool on the day it closed.
NU6.3
What “sealed” means for Orchard
Nothing new can enter — the pool only drains.
Why / details
At block 3,428,143 on 2026-07-28, NU6.3 "Ironwood" stopped Orchard accepting new shielded transactions. No ZEC can be shielded into it, and an Orchard note cannot be spent to a transparent or Sapling address. The balance on this page is therefore monotonically falling.
There is exactly one exit: a public turnstile into Ironwood.
Why / details
Funds leave a sealed pool through a turnstile, and each crossing publicly reveals its amount. That is the price Zcash pays for auditability — the total leaving a pool can never exceed the total that went in, so a counterfeiting bug inside the old circuit would surface as books that fail to balance. Sender identity stays shielded throughout, and once inside Ironwood activity is fully private again.
Sealing is how Zcash retires ageing cryptography.
Why / details
You cannot swap the circuit under a live shielded pool. So each upgrade opens a new pool and seals the old one, and the network carries both until the old balance drains. Sprout was sealed the same way years ago and still holds 22,637 ZEC — the last coins out of a sealed pool take a very long time.
The turnstile
Where the ZEC is going
1,197,796 ZEC has crossed out of Orchard into Ironwood since sealing — 32.8% of the 3,649,240 ZEC that was locked in. Ironwood itself now holds 1,335,457 ZEC, but those two figures answer different questions and should never be read as the same quantity.
Orchard's balance at sealing is not a constant typed into the code. Because a sealed pool can go nowhere except through the turnstile, what is left plus everything that crossed is what was there. ZecStats re-derives it on every refresh, which doubles as an audit: a drifting activation balance would mean a source is wrong.
Data
Orchard pool at a glance
| Metric | Value |
|---|---|
| Orchard pool balance | 2,451,444 ZEC |
| Balance when the pool sealed (derived) | 3,649,240 ZEC |
| Migrated out through the turnstile | 1,197,796 ZEC |
| Share of sealed Orchard migrated | 32.8% |
| Left Orchard in the last 24h | 57,543 ZEC |
| Share of total ZEC supply | 14.5% |
| Share of all shielded ZEC | 56.4% |
| Value at the current ZEC price | $1.21B |
| Pool status | Sealed — accepts no new shielded transactions |
| Sealed by | NU6.3 “Ironwood”, block 3,428,143 (2026-07-28) |
| Only exit route | Public turnstile into the Ironwood pool |
| Proving system | Halo 2 (no trusted setup) |
| Straight-line time to empty at the 24h pace | 43 days |
| Balances as of | 2026-08-06 16:54 UTC |
Trajectory
When will the Orchard pool be empty?
There is no deadline. No protocol rule forces coins out of a sealed pool, and none has been announced. What the chain does show is pace: 57,543 ZEC left Orchard in the last 24 hours, which against the remaining 2,451,444 ZEC is a straight-line 43 days to empty.
Treat that as arithmetic, not a forecast. Migration pace is front-loaded — wallets that are open and spending cross quickly, and what remains is dormant ZEC that moves only when its owner next transacts. The precedent is Sprout, sealed years ago and still holding 22,637 ZEC: the interesting part of a migration is the first 80%, not the last 1%. Live pace, per-origin splits and the day-by-day series are on the Ironwood migration tracker.
Questions
Frequently asked questions
How much ZEC is in the Orchard pool?
2,451,444 ZEC is in Zcash's Orchard pool right now — 14.5% of the total ZEC supply and 56.4% of all shielded ZEC. The pool was sealed by network upgrade NU6.3 on July 28, 2026, so the balance can only fall from here. Figures are read from the chain tip, as of 2026-08-06 16:54 UTC.
Is the Orchard pool still open?
No. NU6.3 "Ironwood" sealed Orchard at block 3,428,143 on 2026-07-28. A sealed pool accepts no new shielded transactions: no ZEC can be shielded into Orchard, and an Orchard note cannot be spent to a transparent or Sapling address. The only permitted movement is out through a public turnstile into the Ironwood pool.
What is the Zcash Orchard pool?
Orchard is the Zcash shielded pool introduced in 2022 with the NU5 upgrade. It uses the Halo 2 proving system, which removed the trusted setup that earlier Zcash circuits required, and it is the pool behind unified addresses. From 2022 until it sealed in 2026 it held the large majority of shielded ZEC.
How much ZEC has left the Orchard pool since it sealed?
1,197,796 ZEC has crossed the turnstile out of Orchard into Ironwood — 32.8% of the 3,649,240 ZEC sealed inside the pool. In the last 24 hours 57,543 ZEC left.
When will the Orchard pool be empty?
No deadline has been announced and no protocol rule forces coins out. At the last 24 hours' pace (57,543 ZEC per day) the remaining 2,451,444 ZEC would take about 43 days — a straight-line projection, not a forecast, because migration pace falls as active wallets finish. Sprout, sealed the same way years earlier, still holds 22,637 ZEC.
Can I still receive ZEC into an Orchard address?
No new value can enter Orchard. Current wallets route new shielded funds into Ironwood and migrate an existing Orchard balance automatically, or on your next spend. Transparent, Sapling and exchange-held ZEC are unaffected by the sealing.
Do I need to move my ZEC out of Orchard?
A sealed pool is exit-only, not a countdown: Orchard funds do not expire. Running a current wallet is what matters, because it performs the turnstile crossing for you. Until it crosses, the ZEC stays in Orchard and is counted in the balance on this page.
Why do trackers report different Orchard balances?
Two reasons. Some read an hourly pool rollup while ZecStats reads the chain tip, and during the migration Orchard moves thousands of ZEC an hour. And some place a cumulative "total migrated" figure — which only ever rises — next to a pool balance, which moves both ways. ZecStats publishes the balance (2,451,444 ZEC), the gross amount that has crossed (1,197,796 ZEC), and the timestamp the balance describes, so the two cannot be confused.