The privacy coin Zcash (ZEC) has officially completed the NU7 mainnet upgrade, shortening the target block time from 75 seconds to 25 seconds, theoretically increasing the transaction confirmation speed by 3 times. However, the new version of the protocol also deactivates the old version of the transaction format, resulting in the inability to transfer out approximately 12,224 ZEC in the earliest Sprout privacy pool, which is estimated to be worth approximately US$15 million at the current market price.
according to ZecStats on-chain tracking data, NU7 was officially launched at block height 3,543,405 at 10:34 am on November 6, Taiwan time.
The block generation time is shortened to 25 seconds, and the daily ZEC issuance remains unchanged
according to Zcash Foundation official announcement, the biggest change of NU7 is to shorten the target block interval from 75 seconds to 25 seconds, which is expected to significantly reduce the waiting time for the first transaction confirmation.
In order to avoid increasing the rate of inflation, the subsidy per block has been reduced from the original 1.5625 ZEC to approximately 0.520833 ZEC, keeping the daily new issuance roughly unchanged and the total supply cap remaining at 21 million.
In addition, the upgrade introduces the Network Sustainability Mechanism (NSM), which temporarily removes 60% of the transaction fees from circulation and will be redistributed in accordance with the protocol rules in the future to support long-term network security.
The old Sprout privacy pool was deactivated and 12,224 ZEC cannot be transferred
Another major change in the upgrade is the official discontinuation of Version 4 Transactions.
according to ZIP 259 Official Technical Specifications, since Zcash’s earliest Sprout privacy pool can only transfer funds through version 4 transactions, after NU7 is activated, the assets left in the pool cannot be spent, even if the holder still retains a valid private key.
ZecStats data shows that there are still about 12,224.21 ZEC in the Sprout pool at the time of the upgrade, which is estimated to be worth about $15.27 million based on the CoinGecko query price of about $1,249. This batch of ZEC has not been destroyed and is still included in the issued supply. Developers may restore asset access through another network upgrade in the future, but there is no guarantee at this time.
ZEC price is about $1,249, and the market is paying attention to its performance after the upgrade
according to CoinGecko query snapshot, ZEC was quoted at around $1,249, down about 4.1% in the past 24 hours, with a market value of about $21.265 billion and a 24-hour trading volume of about $1.06 billion.
NU7 brings faster block confirmation and a new fee distribution mechanism to Zcash, but the disposal of the old privacy pool assets also highlights the trade-off between improving efficiency and maintaining the availability of early user assets when upgrading the blockchain protocol.
For the market, the focus of follow-up observation will be the actual block production stability of the new version of the network, transaction usage, ZEC price reaction, and whether the Sprout asset recovery plan has made progress.
〈Zcash NU7 upgrade is officially launched! Block generation speed is 3 times faster, more than 12,000 ZEC are frozen〉This article was first published inBlock Guest》.
