Zcash Targets Nov. 5 for NU7 Upgrade to Triple Block Speed

Zcash developers are targeting Nov. 5 for the NU7 network upgrade, a major update designed to accelerate transactions and introduce a new mechanism for supporting future mining rewards.

Under the proposal, Zcash’s target block time would fall from 75 seconds to 25 seconds. The timeline was agreed upon following discussions among Zcash Foundation, Project Tachyon, Valar, ZODL and Shielded Labs, with engineering teams reaching unanimous agreement on the upgrade’s contents after community and coinholder polls.

Around 2.4 million ZEC, representing 66% of the eligible voting pool, participated. About 98.9% supported maintaining Zcash’s current halving schedule, while 96.6% favored February 2031 as the date when accumulated transaction fees would begin returning to miners.

Faster Zcash block times could significantly reduce confirmation waits for exchanges, bridges and private payments. Services requiring a fixed number of confirmations could process ZEC transactions in roughly one-third of the current time.

Despite producing three times more blocks, NU7 would not triple ZEC issuance. The block reward would instead be divided by three, while the halving interval would increase from 1.68 million blocks to 5.04 million blocks. This structure is intended to keep Zcash’s long-term issuance trajectory largely unchanged.

NU7 would also introduce the Network Sustainability Mechanism. Under ZIP-235, approximately 60% of Zcash transaction fees would temporarily be removed from circulation rather than immediately distributed to miners. Those funds are expected to begin returning through block rewards in February 2031, supplementing miner revenue as regular ZEC issuance declines through future halvings.

The upgrade also preserves Zcash’s focus on privacy. Shielded transactions conceal the sender, recipient and transaction amount from the public blockchain, allowing users to make digital payments without exposing a searchable financial history.

Developers expect NU7 code to be completed by Sept. 30, followed by testnet deployment on Oct. 6. A final mainnet decision and activation height are scheduled for Oct. 20. As a result, Nov. 5 remains the target activation date rather than a confirmed launch.