diff --git a/pkgs/applications/altcoins/zcash/default.nix b/pkgs/applications/altcoins/zcash/default.nix
index c1aad8e570c..e9236544ee7 100644
--- a/pkgs/applications/altcoins/zcash/default.nix
+++ b/pkgs/applications/altcoins/zcash/default.nix
@@ -18,7 +18,9 @@ stdenv.mkDerivation rec {
     sha256 = "19bxhdnkvgncgl9x6nbaf5nwgrdfw99icvdbi9adfh646pd5z64s";
   };
 
-  enableParallelBuilding = true;
+  # Dependencies are underspecified: "make -C src gtest/zcash_gtest-test_merkletree.o"
+  # fails with "fatal error: test/data/merkle_roots.json.h: No such file or directory"
+  enableParallelBuilding = false;
 
   nativeBuildInputs = [ autoreconfHook pkgconfig ];
   buildInputs = [ gtest gmock gmp libsnark openssl wget db62 boost zlib