Zcash's NU7 Upgrade Goes Live, Recycling 60% of Fees to Fund Future Block Rewards
Summary
Zcash’s NU7 upgrade activated at block 3,543,405, introducing a Network Sustainability Mechanism that will recycle 60% of transaction fees into future block rewards beginning in 2031, while retaining the 21 million ZEC cap and existing halving schedule. The upgrade also cuts target block times from 75 to 25 seconds, retires the Sprout privacy pool, and limits private-transaction data per block. Developers’ stress tests found higher orphan rates with faster blocks, though they expect the live rate to remain below 1%. Zcash organizations are separately consulting on Community Grants and Dev Fund changes, potentially to be implemented in a further upgrade.
