Crypto: Zcash gets 99.9% support for this major network change

Zcash is preparing to sharply reduce the time between its blocks. During the vote organized around the NU7 upgrade, 99.9% of ZECs cast supported the change from 75 to 25 seconds. 98.9% of crypto holders also chose to keep the current halving schedule. Around 2.4 million ZECs participated in the ballot, out of 3.6 million eligible at capture. For this privacy-focused crypto network, NU7 therefore touches on both performance and the future issuance of ZEC.

Zcash scores 99.9% for blocks three times faster

The result leaves little room for doubt on this precise point. ZEC cryoto holders overwhelmingly chose to reduce the target time between two blocks. This is one of the most visible changes proposed for NU7, a new step after the significant changes already made this year to the protocol, notably with the Ironwood upgrade of Zcash.

Today, Zcash targets one block every 75 seconds. ZIP 218 suggests going down to 25 seconds. A transaction that is waiting for a first confirmation could therefore, on average, receive it around three times faster.

The vote was not low. According to results posted on the Zcash forum, approximately 2.4 million ZEC crypto participated, compared to 3.6 million present in the eligible pool at the time of capture. This represents approximately 66% stake in value. The threshold set to consider the vote as sufficiently representative was one million ZEC.

However, it is necessary to clarify what the famous 99.9% means.

This is not 99.9% of people using Zcash. The vote was weighted according to the eligible ZECs held by each participant. In particular, the cryptos had to be available in the Ironwood protected pool when captured. The result therefore measures the weight of voting ZECs, not a number of individuals.

Nuance matters. The support nonetheless remains massive.

Going to 25 seconds changes more than wait time

ZIP 218 is not just about changing a number in the protocol. With one block every 75 seconds, Zcash theoretically produces around 1,152 per day. At 25 seconds, the network would grow to 3,456 daily blocks. Three times more.

The main expected gain concerns payments, deposits on exchanges and certain operations using bridges. Today, even when the network is lightly loaded, you have to wait for the next block. Reducing the interval directly targets this latency.

Orchard’s throughput must also increase. The ZIP authors estimate that its maximum capacity would increase from approximately 2.9 to 6.6 transactions per second for certain operations using two actions. It is therefore not an automatic tripling of the TPS on all of Zcash, even if three times more blocks will be produced.

Limits are added in parallel. A block can contain a maximum of 330 Orchard actions, 300 Sapling entries and exits, as well as 25 Sprout JoinSplits. The objective is to prevent the increase in block frequency from transforming the synchronization of crypto wallets into a much heavier problem.

The ZIP calculations even give a rather counterintuitive result. In the worst-case scenario studied, the daily bandwidth required for protected sync would drop from approximately 270.5 MB to 169.1 MB, a drop of 37%, despite three times as many blocks. The technical change is therefore broader than “Zcash becomes three times faster”. It combines more blocks and stricter caps on what each can hold.

The halvings will ultimately remain in place

NU7 also touches on a much more sensitive subject: the creation of new ZECs. Zcash took over from Bitcoin a model of supply capped at 21 million tokens and a system of periodic halvings. Another option was on the table: replacing the abrupt reductions in the reward with a more gradual emission curve.

ZEC crypto holders have largely rejected this change. 2,375,932.375 ZEC voted to keep the halvings. Only 22,384.875 ZEC supported the smoothed curve. 4,147.625 ZEC wanted to exclude this change from NU7 and 1,072.125 ZEC abstained. Cointelegraph thus calculates 98.9% support for retaining the current calendar.

The change from 75 to 25 seconds therefore does not mean that miners will receive three times more ZEC every day. The block reward needs to be adjusted.

ZIP 218 explicitly plans to maintain the same daily emission despite the increase in the number of blocks. In other words, more blocks will be produced, each with a smaller quantity of new ZECs.

This precision avoids a fairly easy misinterpretation: tripling the frequency of blocks without modifying the crypto rewards would have accelerated the issuance and disrupted the entire monetary calendar. This is not what is proposed.

The sustainability mechanism will wait until 2031

Another vote concerned the Network Sustainability Mechanism, or NSM. The project seeks to prepare for funding network security when mining rewards have declined significantly. Several ZIPs are associated with this idea. One of them includes temporarily removing 60% of transaction fees from circulation, then allowing their subsequent reissuance through block rewards. The cap of 21 million ZEC crypto would be retained.

However, the holders do not want to rush the second part of the mechanism.

For the start date of this reissue, around 2.32 million ZECs chose February 2031. Some 70,240 ZECs preferred to start as soon as possible and 6,283 ZECs voted for February 2027. The choice of 2031 represents around 97% of the weight expressed on this issue.

There was more debate in the other groups consulted. The Zcash Community Advisory Panel, for example, was much more divided on maintaining halvings: 57 members preferred a smoothed issue and 54 the current system. The vote of ZEC crypto holders produced a huge gap.

On the reissue schedule, Shielded Labs, Project Tachyon, ZODL, the Zcash Foundation and Valar Group ultimately indicated that they would retain February 2031 as the most prudent interpretation of the various results. The subject can be put back to a vote later.

No major immediate monetary upheaval, therefore. The halvings remain.

Sprout must also disappear with NU7

The vote wasn’t just about speed and rewards. Holders also voted to deactivate old v4 transactions linked in particular to Sprout when NU7 is activated. Sprout is Zcash’s first protected transaction system and has long since been replaced by newer generations. According to the Zcash Foundation, this pool contained less than 23,000 ZEC before the vote and represented less than 0.1% of trading volume.

Orchard now carries most of the protected activity. As of May, data used for ZIP 218 showed approximately 4.53 million ZEC crypto in Orchard, or 87.9% of the supply placed in protected pools. Sapling held approximately 598,000 ZEC and Sprout 25,409 ZEC on that date.

Zcash has worked a lot on this infrastructure in 2026. A critical vulnerability discovered in Orchard has pushed the ecosystem to accelerate several technical changes. An audit subsequently carried out with Claude Mythos did not identify any other major flaw, as Tremplin.io reported in its article devoted to the audit of Zcash after the Orchard flaw.

NU7 arrives a few months later with another priority: simplifying and accelerating the network. However, not all projects will be added at all costs.

ZEC crypto holders also supported the idea of ​​removing from the scope of NU7 functions that will not be ready before September 30.

NU7 still has no activation date

This is perhaps the easiest point to forget after such a clear vote: NU7 is not yet activated.

The official Zcash page still states that the activation height has not been fixed. The ZIPs are still presented as candidates and the final content must be finalized before deployment on the testnet and then on the main network.

The 99.9% therefore gives direction. Not immediate activation.

The reduction to 25 seconds must be integrated, tested and adopted by the software which ensures the operation of the network. Zcash also says that major consensus changes in NU7 will require the use of Zebra, the node developed by the Zcash Foundation, rather than the legacy zcashd.

This is a special time for ZEC. Privacy has returned to the forefront of the crypto market this year, as Zcash has undergone a series of critical breaches, hard forks, governance changes and the arrival of a US-listed product. At the end of August, Grayscale launched its Zcash product on NYSE Arca. A few days later, the ZEC returned above levels it had not seen since 2018.

The ZEC still showed an increase of 132% over one month as of September 16. The movement also goes beyond the price of the token alone: ​​Zcash mining currently generates nearly four times more revenue per megawatt than Bitcoin. NU7 touches on something more sustainable. Blocks every 25 seconds, halving retained, an NSM reissue pushed back to 2031 and Sprout destined to disappear. The vote now provides clear direction. It remains to integrate these changes into the code, test them, then set the activation date on the main network.