Zcash developers confirm November date for upgrade that triples payment speed
Zcash developers have scheduled the NU7 network upgrade for early November, which aims to triple transaction speeds by reducing block times. The update also introduces a fee-burning mechanism and mandates the migration of funds from the legacy Sprout system to avoid loss.
Why it matters
This upgrade significantly improves the scalability and utility of the Zcash blockchain, though it requires immediate action from users to prevent the permanent loss of funds held in legacy accounts.
Zcash developer Sean Bowe filed a proposal on Tuesday to set activation at block 3,543,405, a height agreed at a meeting of Zcash Improvement Proposal (ZIP) editors, the group that signs off on changes to the blockchain’s rules.
Node software Zakura's public upgrade dashboard now lists that block as the planned mainnet activation point, around Nov. 5.
NU7 cuts the time between blocks, the batches of transactions added to the chain, from 75 seconds to 25 seconds. An exchange that waits for three confirmations before crediting a ZEC (ZEC) deposit could reduce the delay from nearly four minutes to about a minute and a quarter. The upgrade has run on Zcash's test network since early October.
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