Zcash holders back 25-second blocks in NU7 vote

Zcash holders have overwhelmingly backed faster blocks and the network’s existing halving schedule in a private governance poll involving nearly 2.4 million ZEC.

The Zcash Community Forum’s published NU7 results show participation equal to roughly 66% of the 3.6 million ZEC held in the eligible Ironwood pool at the snapshot height. Organizers had set 1 million ZEC as the minimum participation level needed to consider the poll representative of coinholders.

Voting closed on Sept. 14 at 19:00 UTC after eligible balances were recorded at mainnet block 3,459,350 on Aug. 24. Only spendable shielded funds held in Ironwood at the snapshot could participate, while the coins could be moved afterward without affecting voting eligibility.

Zcash holders favor 25-second blocks without faster issuance

Among the clearest results, roughly 99.9% of participating ZEC supported reducing Zcash’s block target from 75 seconds to 25 seconds. The proposal is described in ZIP 218, which pairs the shorter block interval with changes designed to keep issuance over wall-clock time at its existing rate.

Moving to three times as many blocks does not mean miners would receive three times as much new ZEC per day. ZIP 218 divides the per-block subsidy by another factor of three after NU7 activation, maintaining the scheduled issuance rate while blocks arrive more frequently. The draft calculates a post-NU7 subsidy of 0.26041666 ZEC per block under the current reward level.

Coinholders separately rejected a change to the network’s halving model. The published tally shows 2,375,932.375 ZEC supporting preservation of halvings, compared with 22,384.875 ZEC favoring a smooth issuance curve. Another 4,147.625 ZEC preferred leaving issuance smoothing out of NU7, while 1,072.125 ZEC abstained.

The alternative, set out in ZIP 234, would replace the step-based halving system with a gradually declining block subsidy calculated from the remaining money reserve. The proposal retains Zcash’s supply ceiling but changes how newly issued ZEC would reach the market over time.

Private ballots concealed individual ZEC balances

The voting system used a dedicated chain created by Valar Group to let economic stake determine voting weight without exposing each participant’s shielded balance alongside their choices.

Under the published design, a distributed election authority consists of at least 10 validators holding separate decryption-key shares. Individual validators cannot recover voter identities, while at least two-thirds of the validator set is required to recover the final aggregate tally.

Each vote was homomorphically encrypted, meaning validators could combine encrypted votes and produce totals without first revealing every ballot. Individual votes were split into 16 unlinkable pieces to preserve balance privacy even in a scenario where validators tried to coordinate, according to Valar Group developer Dev Bharel’s explanation in the governance thread.

Five groups were named in the coordinator structure: Project Tachyon, Valar Group, the Zcash Foundation, Zodl and Shielded Labs. Wallets including Vizor and Zodl supported the process, while the underlying voting-chain software and tally-auditing tools were published for public inspection.

The mechanism became possible after Zcash activated Ironwood in July. Ironwood replaced the earlier Orchard shielded pool following disclosure of a flaw that could theoretically have allowed undetectable counterfeit ZEC. The new pool introduced stronger supply controls and became the source of balances eligible for the NU7 coinholder poll.

Coinholders prefer waiting until 2031 to recycle NSM funds

The sharpest difference between coinholders and other Zcash governance groups concerned when ZEC removed through the Network Sustainability Mechanism should begin returning through future block rewards.

Coinholders allocated 2,319,643.750 ZEC to a February 2031 start date, equal to approximately 96.6% of participating ZEC on that question. Only 70,239.625 ZEC favored beginning as soon as possible, while 6,283 ZEC chose February 2027 and 4,985.625 ZEC abstained.

The NSM framework contemplates taking ZEC out of circulation and recycling it later through block subsidies without raising the maximum supply. ZIP 235 proposes removing at least 60% of transaction fees from circulation, with the remaining portion continuing to provide miner incentives.

A post published after the poll supplied a new operational interpretation of the mixed governance results. Representatives of Shielded Labs, Project Tachyon, ZODL, the Zcash Foundation and Valar Group have discussed the outcome and aligned on February 2031, describing it as the most conservative interpretation of the results. The same statement left open the possibility of another poll if circumstances warrant an earlier start.

The parallel Zcash Community Advisory Panel poll drew 135 ballots from 198 eligible members, a 68% response rate. Unlike coinholders, the panel was closely divided over issuance smoothing, with a community summary recording 57 votes for smoothing and 54 for preserving halvings.

NU7 can proceed without features missing September deadline

Coinholders backed moving NU7 forward without waiting indefinitely for every proposed component. The ballot asked whether features unfinished by Sept. 30 should be removed so the upgrade can ship, or whether NU7 should wait until all approved features are complete. The first option received the dominant coinholder support.

The poll produced support for disabling version 4 transactions immediately when NU7 activates, retiring the remaining functionality associated with the legacy Sprout pool. Zcash’s voting documentation says Sprout deposits have already been disabled, the pool contains fewer than 23,000 ZEC and v4 transactions account for less than 0.1% of transaction volume.

A vote does not itself modify Zcash consensus rules. Developers described the process as a sentiment poll for consensus changes, with implementation still requiring technical specifications, code, testing and ecosystem agreement. The official Zcash ZIP index continues to list the 25-second block proposal and several NSM components as NU7 candidates or drafts and states that no decision in the index itself determines which proposals will be included.

Development work on transaction performance has been proceeding separately. Zakura developers said their open-source cryptography toolkit cut private transaction construction from more than three seconds to below 200 milliseconds in some tests. The library improvements can be adopted by wallets without waiting for a coordinated network upgrade.

Market data did not show a clean one-event reaction that could be attributed solely to the governance results. At the latest Sept. 16 reading, CoinGecko placed ZEC near $1,146, up around 2% over 24 hours, with a market capitalization near $19.4 billion and a 24-hour range of approximately $1,114 to $1,223.

ZEC had already undergone a sharp rally before the poll closed. In related coverage,crypto.news reported that ZEC traded near $1,216 on Sept. 10 after climbing from roughly $814 during the preceding week.

No NU7 activation height is currently specified in the published voting material. The Sept. 30 date applies to feature readiness under the preferred scope option, while deployment still requires developers to determine the final NU7 package and activation parameters.