Zcash's NU7 network upgrade activated on Friday at block 3,543,405, mined at 02:34 UTC, cutting the network's target block time from 75 seconds to 25. Some outlets date it to Thursday evening in the US. It is the upgrade Blockhead covered when Zcash developers set its activation for November .
The upgrade also disables version 4 transactions, which leaves coins held in Sprout, Zcash's original 2016 shielded pool, unspendable. About 12,224 ZEC remained in Sprout at activation, roughly $12 million. The funds have not been burned, and Zcash's specification leaves open the possibility of a future upgrade restoring access, though it warns that the ability to spend them may never be re-enabled. No recovery mechanism had been approved yet.
The stranded total is about half what Blockhead flagged ahead of the vote. Our October 21 piece reported roughly 22,309 ZEC, worth over $28 million at the time, still in Sprout on October 17. That implies roughly 10,000 ZEC was migrated in the final days.
Network hashrate then reached a record 33.1 GSol/s on Monday, up 159% on the year, ZEC Stats data showed. Block rewards were adjusted so issuance stays steady, and the number of blocks between halvings tripled, while the 21 million ZEC supply cap is unchanged.
NU7 also introduces the Network Sustainability Mechanism, built by Shielded Labs. It removes 60% of transaction fees from circulation and reissues them through block rewards starting in 2031.
Developers want to go faster still. Last Sunday, ValarDragon and Evan Forbes filed a draft Zcash Improvement Proposal to cut the target interval from 25 seconds to 20 in a possible NU7.1 upgrade. The change would keep the issuance schedule and the 2 MB block size limit, and would scale the per-block shielded action limits by four-fifths, from 330 to 264 for Orchard and Ironwood actions and from 300 to 240 for Sapling, so the daily maximum load on light wallets stays the same, Cryptotimes reported . The authors want it in the next community poll.
A broader plan followed on Monday evening. In a post on the Zcash community forum , ValarDragon proposed that the next upgrade, NU8, target late January 2027 and bundle seven changes.
ZEC falls below $1,000 as ETF outflows continue
ZEC rose on upgrade day, climbing from about $1,256 to $1,375 within six hours on Friday, while the broader crypto market fell. The gain did not last. ZEC fell below $1,000 on Wednesday, and is currently trading at around $943.16. Blockhead tracked the run when Zcash rallied to a September peak and when Grayscale's ETF conversion headed for an NYSE debut .
Fund flows have turned the other way. Grayscale's Zcash ETF, ZCSH, recorded net outflows of $46.25 million in October and more than $15 million in November through Monday, according to SoSoValue dataa, which left it with about $724 million of net assets. Grayscale responded with a national ad campaign, "Zcash: The Next Era of Crypto," which began with a Wall Street Journal wrap, and said it plans to put $1 million into Zcash ecosystem groups, funded by reinvesting up to the first year of ZCSH sponsor fees.
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