Ledger Draws Heat as Pre-2018 Zcash Holders Face Dropped Support

Why It Matters

The outage prevents owners of early‑adopted ZEC from accessing potentially valuable holdings, underscoring risks of hardware‑wallet dependency on legacy protocol support. It also raises broader questions about vendor accountability and could erode confidence in Ledger and the broader crypto‑asset custody market.

Summary

Long‑time Zcash holders with coins minted before the 2018 Sapling upgrade are unable to spend their assets using Ledger hardware wallets after the company removed support for the legacy "version 1" transaction format. The issue, highlighted by Bitcoin developer Jameson Lopp, also affects several software wallets, leaving users with pre‑2018 ZEC effectively locked as the token rallies to multi‑year highs. Ledger’s CTO confirmed the lack of support and said the company plans to reinstate it by Q2 2026, citing a grant application with the Zcash Foundation. Community backlash has intensified scrutiny of Ledger’s product reliability amid its strong financial performance and upcoming IPO considerations.