Zcash developers have agreed to target block 3,543,405 for the NU7 upgrade, putting mainnet activation around Nov. 5. The change is not final yet. The selected height still needs to be merged into the deployment specification and included in node software before the upgrade can actually take effect.
Zcash developer Sean Bowe filed the proposal on Tuesday after editors of the Zcash Improvement Proposal, or ZIP, process agreed on the activation block at a meeting. That group is responsible for signing off on changes to the blockchain’s rules.
Zakura’s public upgrade dashboard now lists block 3,543,405 as the planned mainnet activation point, with timing estimated at around Nov. 5.
Block times would fall from 75 seconds to 25 seconds
The headline change in NU7 is a reduction in the time between Zcash blocks, from 75 seconds to 25 seconds. Blocks are the batches of transactions added to the chain. If an exchange waits for three confirmations before crediting a ZEC deposit, the delay would drop from nearly four minutes to about 75 seconds, or roughly one minute and 15 seconds.
That would make payment confirmation on the privacy-focused blockchain about three times faster than it is now. Developers had already been moving toward that outcome, and agreement on the exact activation block brings the upgrade closer to deployment.
NU7 has been running on Zcash’s test network since early October.
Upgrade would temporarily remove 60% of block fees from circulation
NU7 also changes how fees are handled. Under the proposal, 60% of the fees collected in each block would be taken out of circulation for a period of time. Those coins are scheduled to be paid back to miners starting around February 2031.
The plan keeps Zcash’s existing schedule for cutting mining rewards by 50% intact, according to the source text.
Sprout will shut down completely
The upgrade would also disable Sprout, Zcash’s original privacy system. Any coins still held there when NU7 activates would become unspendable.
That leaves holders with a window until activation in early November to move funds out of Sprout if they want to keep access to them after the upgrade goes live.
Proposal has approvals, but deployment work is still pending
Bowe’s proposal had received two approvals, but as of 08:00 UTC Wednesday it had not yet been merged into the deployment specification. At that time, the specification still listed the mainnet activation height as undecided.
Node software must also include the chosen block height before NU7 can be activated. So while developers have aligned on block 3,543,405 and Zakura’s public dashboard reflects that plan, the upgrade still depends on final specification and software integration before it becomes effective on mainnet.