75 seconds to 25 seconds. That is the change to Zcash’s target block time in NU7, the network upgrade developers now plan to activate at block 3,543,405, around 5 November, CoinDesk reported on 21 October.
Three confirmations would take about 75 seconds instead of nearly four minutes. The upgrade has run on the test network since early October. CoinDesk’s headline describes this as tripling payment speed, which holds for confirmations but says nothing about how many people are paying.
The less comfortable change is the shutdown of Sprout, Zcash’s original privacy system. Coins still held there at activation become unspendable, so holders must move them beforehand.
NU7 also changes fee treatment. From around February 2031, 60 percent of each block’s fees are removed from circulation and returned to miners, CoinDesk reported, while the existing 50 percent reduction in mining rewards stays on schedule.
ZEC rose about 11 percent on the day, according to a CoinDesk market report, though the price move says little about whether the upgrade ships on time.
The date is a proposal. Developer Sean Bowe filed it on Tuesday, it had two approvals, and as of Wednesday morning UTC it was not yet merged into the deployment specification, which still listed the activation height as undecided.
Node software must carry the chosen height before anything activates. Until that merge lands, 5 November is an expectation, and holders with coins in Sprout have no firm deadline to work to.
