Zcash’s planned Sprout freeze would leave private keys unable to move funds
Zcash’s proposed NU7 upgrade would reject version 4 transactions, eliminating the only supported way to spend funds in its legacy Sprout privacy pool. About 22,309 ZEC remained there on Oct. 17. Mainnet activation is undecided; a decision is planned for Oct. 20, with Nov. 5 as the conditional target. If approved, Sprout holders would need to recover and migrate funds before activation, though the proposal does not remove them from issued supply and leaves open the possibility of future recovery. Migration can require legacy wallet data or lengthy blockchain scans, and moving funds to Sapling exposes amounts through public pool accounting, creating privacy trade-offs. The upgrade aims to reduce verification complexity and denial-of-service risks. NU7 has activated on testnet, and operators would need compatible software to follow the upgraded network.
