Zcash Holders Opt for Faster Blocks, Preserve Halving Schedule in NU7 Vote
Zcash coinholders have overwhelmingly voted to speed up their network and maintain its Bitcoin-style halving schedule, setting the stage for the NU7 upgrade. Nearly 2.4 million ZEC, about two-thirds of the eligible supply, participated in the vote, far exceeding the 1 million ZEC threshold set by organizers.
The majority of voters supported cutting the time between blocks to 25 seconds from 75, which should reduce the wait time for payment confirmations. They also chose to keep halvings, where newly issued ZEC paid to miners is reduced at fixed intervals, similar to Bitcoin's monetary policy.
Other key features include disabling transactions tied to Sprout, Zcash's original privacy pool, and shipping NU7 as soon as possible. The upgrade will drop any feature not implemented by September 30th.
The result means that the Network Sustainability Mechanism, which pulls fees out of circulation, will not be reissuing collected ZEC until February 2031. This allows several years' worth of fees to accumulate before they return to miners.