Zcash targets November upgrade to make private payments up to three times faster
Zcash developers are aiming to activate the NU7 network upgrade on Nov. 5, which would reduce block times from 75 seconds to 25 seconds and speed up shielded (private) payments. NU7 would also implement a Network Sustainability Mechanism that temporarily withholds about 60% of transaction fees from circulation and returns them to miners starting in February 2031.
Why It Matters
Faster block times could make private, on-chain payments more practical for merchants and services by reducing confirmation wait times, while the fee-withholding measure is designed to supplement miner rewards as issuance declines through halvings. Both changes affect transaction finality, miner economics, and wallet/node software maintenance for the Zcash network.
Key Facts
- Target activation date: Nov. 5 (target, final decision due Oct. 20)
- Current block time: 75 seconds
- Proposed block time: 25 seconds
- Portion of transaction fees set aside: About 60% under ZIP-235
- Return of collected fees to miners: Scheduled to begin February 2031 (per vote)
Zcash core teams have proposed the NU7 upgrade, with a target mainnet activation of Nov. 5 and a final go/no-go decision planned for Oct. 20. The change would shorten Zcash’s target block time from 75 seconds to 25 seconds, increasing the frequency of blocks threefold. Developers say the reduced block interval would allow services that wait for a fixed number of confirmations — such as exchanges, bridges or point-of-sale systems — to complete releases or accept payments in roughly one-third of the previous time. To avoid increasing overall issuance despite producing more blocks, NU7 would reduce the reward per block by a factor of three and extend the halving interval from 1.68 million blocks to 5.04 million. Developers and constituent teams — including the Zcash Foundation, Project Tachyon, Valar, ZODL and Shielded Labs — reached unanimous agreement on the upgrade after community and coinholder polling. Approximately 2.4 million ZEC, representing 66% of the eligible voting pool, participated in the vote; 98.9% supported keeping the existing halving schedule and 96.6% selected February 2031 as the date to begin returning collected fees to miners. NU7 would also introduce a Network Sustainability Mechanism under ZIP-235 that temporarily removes roughly 60% of transaction fees from circulation instead of paying them to miners. Those withheld fees are slated to re-enter miner rewards starting in February 2031, intended to supplement miner income as base issuance diminishes through future halvings. The upgrade would disable an older transaction format but does not add any new formats; developers expect wallets to need minimal changes while full nodes, indexers and block explorers may require updates. The development timeline calls for code completion by Sept. 30, with NU7 deployed to Zcash’s test network on Oct. 6 and a mainnet activation height to be chosen on Oct. 20. Until that final decision, Nov. 5 remains a target rather than a confirmed launch date.
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