Zcash developers are targeting Nov. 5 for the launch of NU7, an upgrade that would reduce the network’s block interval from 75 seconds to 25 seconds. The proposal also calls for about 60% of transaction fees to be reserved for mining rewards starting in February 2031.

The timeline follows negotiations between Zcash Foundation, Project Tachyon, Valar, ZODL and Shielded Labs. The organizations and their engineering teams reached unanimous agreement on NU7 after a series of polls involving the community and ZEC holders.

Roughly 2.4 million ZEC took part in the voting, accounting for 66% of the eligible pool. Maintaining the existing halving schedule received 98.9% support, while 96.6% favored February 2031 as the date for beginning to return accumulated fees to miners.

NU7 Could Cut Confirmation Times

Zcash is among the blockchain projects seeking to enable direct payments between users and merchants without routing transactions through banks or card networks such as Visa and Mastercard.

This model allows users to hold and transfer digital money directly from their devices, including for online purchases and cross-border payments, without relying on a bank or card issuer to process every transaction.

Public ledgers, however, can expose sensitive financial information. Payments made from transparent addresses can reveal balances, transaction histories and links between different addresses.

Zcash’s shielded transactions are designed to keep the sender, recipient and amount confidential. This allows a user to pay another party without leaving a publicly searchable record of their financial activity.

Blockchain blocks contain batches of transactions that miners add to the network. A payment gets its first confirmation after being included in a block.

Reducing the target block time from 75 seconds to 25 seconds would allow exchanges and bridges that wait for a predetermined number of confirmations to release ZEC in roughly one-third of the current time.

The improvement would not make Zcash payments as instantaneous as tapping a bank card, but the shorter confirmation period could make direct private transactions more useful for everyday payments.

Block Rewards Would Be Adjusted

NU7 would produce blocks three times more frequently, but Zcash’s issuance would not increase by the same factor.

The proposal would reduce the reward per block by three while extending the halving interval from 1.68 million blocks to 5.04 million. The adjustments are intended to keep the network’s long-term ZEC issuance broadly unchanged.

NU7 would additionally activate the Network Sustainability Mechanism.

Under ZIP-235, roughly 60% of transaction fees would be temporarily removed from circulation instead of being distributed to miners. The accumulated funds would begin returning through block rewards in February 2031.

The system is designed to provide miners with additional revenue as regular ZEC issuance decreases through subsequent halvings.

Mainnet Activation Date Still Pending

The upgrade would disable Zcash’s legacy transaction format but would not introduce another format. Developers do not expect major wallet changes, although full nodes, indexers and block explorers could require updates.

NU7 code is scheduled for completion by Sept. 30, followed by a testnet deployment on Oct. 6.

Developers will make the final mainnet decision and determine the activation height on Oct. 20. Until then, Nov. 5 remains the planned target date rather than a finalized launch date.