Another one bites the dust. Ironfish is a project from 2019 not many people have heard about. I heard about it once in 2020, then again in 2023 when it launched, and then never again have I heard its name until today.
An inflation bug dating all the way back to 2019 was discovered. Before the network was even live, it was already possible to inflate its supply per the code.
"The ability to find and exploit vulnerabilities in technically complex code is becoming commoditized. Safety guardrails on US frontier models make it difficult for companies to use them to patch security vulnerabilities, while abliterated open-source models are approaching frontier capabilities."
Ironfish had some big names backing it such as Andreessen Horowitz (a16z Crypto), Do Kwon, and Balaji Srinivasan. They raised $33 million in a Seed round and Series A.
In March 2025, the Iron Fish development team was acquired by Base (Coinbase’s Layer 2) to build privacy-preserving primitives. Today it is dead.
Its ATH was $17 per IRON. Highest marketcap reached was $69.88 million. As of the time of writing the price sits at $0.006 USD.
https://stasher.news/uploads/1058
Privacy cryptos with confirmed inflation bugs in 2026:
Zcash
Zano
Pirate Chain
Ironfish
Later today, we are officially ending all remaining support for the Iron Fish network. A few days ago, we observed abnormal activity involving wIRON and the ChainPort bridge. After working with ChainPort and reviewing their logs, we discovered that the cause was an inflation bug…
I wish someone would make a coffezilla style video breaking down all these projects and the funding behind them.
My mind rn:
Everyone attacked by inflation attacks
Wtf is up with that... you'd think after the first one, everyone would take a step back and triple check...
As for models, idk bros if the obliterated models are so OP, use them to audit the code? Though I think this could introduce risks as well. I'm not technical, but more guards against inflation have to be invented if it is an issue big enough to wipe out years of work and millions in backing