Zcash Sets November Upgrade to Make Payments Three Times Faster

Zcash is nearing a major network upgrade that could make payments three times faster after developers agreed on the block height at which the NU7 update will activate on the privacy-focused blockchain.

On Tuesday, Zcash developer Sean Bowe submitted a proposal to set the activation point at block 3,543,405. The height was agreed upon during a meeting of Zcash Improvement Proposal (ZIP) editors, the group responsible for approving changes to the network’s rules.

Zakura’s public upgrade dashboard now identifies block 3,543,405 as the planned mainnet activation point, with the launch expected around Nov. 5.

The NU7 upgrade will reduce the interval between Zcash blocks from 75 seconds to 25 seconds. This change could significantly shorten payment processing times. For example, an exchange that requires three confirmations before crediting a ZEC deposit could cut the waiting period from nearly four minutes to approximately 75 seconds. The upgrade has been running on Zcash’s testnet since early October.

NU7 will also remove 60% of the fees collected in each block from circulation and place those coins in a reserve. The funds are scheduled to begin returning to miners around February 2031, while Zcash’s existing schedule for halving mining rewards will remain unchanged.

The upgrade will also permanently disable Sprout, Zcash’s original privacy protocol. Any coins remaining in Sprout addresses when NU7 activates will become unspendable, giving holders until the expected early-November launch to transfer their funds.

Although Bowe’s proposal had received two approvals, it had not yet been incorporated into the deployment specification as of 08:00 UTC on Wednesday. At that time, the specification still showed the mainnet activation height as undecided.

The selected block height must be added to the deployment specification and included in node software before the upgrade can take effect.