Zcash targets November 5 upgrade to cut block times and speed up private payments

Zcash developers are targeting November 5, 2026 to launch the NU7 upgrade, which will cut block times from 75 to 25 seconds to speed up private transactions. To preserve Zcash's fixed-supply model, the upgrade reduces block rewards by three and triples the halving interval. Additionally, a new Network Sustainability Mechanism will temporarily bank 60% of transaction fees to fund miners starting in February 2031, a plan backed by 98.9% of voting coinholders.

NU7 upgrade block time reduction

• ▪The reduction of Zcash's block time from 75 seconds to 25 seconds in the NU7 upgrade is designed to speed up shielded, private transactions by approximately three times
• ▪Zcash developers are targeting November 5, 2026 to activate the NU7 upgrade, which will reduce block times from 75 seconds to 25 seconds.

Zcash issuance preservation mechanism

• ▪The Zcash NU7 upgrade preserves the network's long-term issuance schedule by tripling the halving interval from 1.68 million blocks to 5.04 million blocks.
• ▪To prevent an increase in coin issuance from faster block times, the Zcash NU7 upgrade includes a proposal called ZIP 218 that divides the block reward by approximately three.

Network Sustainability Mechanism

• ▪The Zcash NU7 upgrade introduces a Network Sustainability Mechanism under ZIP-235 that temporarily removes approximately 60% of transaction fees from circulation.
• ▪The transaction fees collected by the Zcash Network Sustainability Mechanism are scheduled to be distributed to miners as supplemental rewards starting in February 2031.

Privacy-focused payment use case

• ▪Shielded Zcash payments are designed to hide the sender, recipient, and transaction amount from the public blockchain to protect user financial privacy.
• ▪While still slower than tapping a payment card, Zcash developers state that the shorter block times introduced by the NU7 upgrade, which cuts block time from 75 seconds to 25 seconds, make direct, private cryptocurrency payments more practical for everyday transactions

NU7 development timeline

• ▪The Zcash NU7 upgrade is scheduled to launch on the testnet on October 6, 2026, with developers making the final mainnet activation decision on October 20, 2026.
• ▪The Zcash native token, ZEC, recovered from a 38% drop following the counterfeiting scare, rising over 2,500% over the past year and benefiting from Grayscale listing a spot ETF.
• ▪Five Zcash development organizations—Zcash Foundation, Project Tachyon, Valar Group, ZODL, and Shielded Labs—reached unanimous agreement on the scope and timeline of the NU7 upgrade targeted for Nov. 5
• ▪In July 2026, Zcash implemented the Ironwood upgrade to patch a four-year-old vulnerability that could have allowed users to counterfeit ZEC tokens.

Coinholder governance vote results

• ▪In the Zcash governance poll, 96.6% of voting coinholders chose February 2031 as the starting date to begin returning collected transaction fees to miners.
• ▪In a Zcash governance vote representing 66% of the eligible pool, 98.9% of the 2.4 million ZEC voted supported keeping Zcash's Bitcoin-style halving schedule intact.

Debatable claims

• ▪Governments should ban private cryptocurrencies like Zcash
• ▪Zcash should abandon its fixed-supply model to ensure long-term security