Taylor Hornby — the security engineer who used Anthropic’s Opus 4.8 AI model to uncover a critical Zcash vulnerability — says Monero is next on his audit list.
Asked on X (formerly Twitter) whether he would probe Monero and other privacy coins, Hornby replied, “Absolutely! I’ll add Monero to my queue of things to audit.” Monero (XMR) is one of the largest privacy-focused cryptocurrencies and, unlike Zcash, hides transaction details by default rather than offering optional shielded addresses.
Hornby discovered the Zcash bug on May 29 inside the blockchain’s Orchard privacy pool. The vulnerability, which had gone unnoticed since May 2022, could have allowed an attacker to mint unlimited, undetectable counterfeit ZEC. Shielded Labs — a nonprofit developer on the Zcash network that hired Hornby in April to proactively hunt for protocol flaws — disclosed the issue on Thursday and pushed an emergency fix by June 1. Following the disclosure, ZEC plunged roughly 38% in 24 hours amid concerns that undetectable theft may have been possible for years.
Hornby said he reported the flaw rather than exploiting it because the Zcash developers were “like family” and he “could not live with that kind of betrayal.” He also plans to apply for a Zcash coinholder grant to fund further audit work.
The episode highlights two trends: the growing use of advanced AI models in security research and the continued scrutiny of privacy-preserving protocols, where subtle implementation bugs can carry outsized financial risk. Hornby’s move to add Monero to his audit queue will be watched closely by the community given the coin’s prominence and differing privacy architecture.
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