Nearly 2.4 million ZEC holders have endorsed a reduction in the block interval for Zcash from 75 seconds to 25 seconds as part of the upcoming NU7 upgrade. An overwhelming 99.9% of those who participated in the vote supported this proposal.

In a separate query regarding coin emission, 98.9% of votes favored maintaining the current halving schedule instead of gradually decreasing ZEC issuance.

The voting was weighted by the amount of coins rather than the number of individual participants. Of approximately 3.6 million ZEC held in the new Ironwood secure pool at the time of the snapshot, around 2.4 million — or 66% — were involved. The minimum participation threshold was set at 1 million ZEC.

Reduction of the Interval

The proposal outlined in ZIP 218 aims to cut the target block interval from 75 seconds to 25 seconds, while also imposing limits on the number of operations within the Sapling and Orchard secure pools. Importantly, this reduction in time will not accelerate emission; the reward for each block will decrease proportionally, keeping the overall ZEC issuance rate unchanged.

For standard transactions in Orchard, the authors of ZIP 218 anticipate increasing throughput from 2.9 to 6.6 transactions per second. Additionally, the maximum data size required for synchronizing light wallets is expected to decrease by approximately 37% — from 271 MB to 169 MB per day.

Previously, the Zakura team introduced an open set of cryptographic and protocol libraries for the Zcash ecosystem. According to the developers, Zakura Common can reduce the time needed to prepare a private transaction in a wallet from over three seconds to less than 200 milliseconds in certain scenarios.

ZEC Holders Opt for Halvings

A critical issue in the voting process was the emission mechanism. Participants were asked whether to maintain the periodic halving of miner rewards or to shift to a more gradual reduction in ZEC issuance.

The existing halving model received support from 2,376 million ZEC, while a gradual emission curve was favored by 22,384.875 ZEC. An additional 4,147.625 ZEC opted not to include changes to the emission mechanism in NU7.

However, a separate poll conducted by the Zcash Community Advisory Panel (ZCAP) did not reflect such consensus. Among its members, 57 supported a gradual reduction in emission, while 54 preferred to keep the halving mechanism.

In total, 135 out of 198 members participated in the ZCAP voting, representing 68% of the panel.

Points of Divergence

The voting also addressed the Network Sustainability Mechanism (NSM), which proposes withdrawing a portion of ZEC from circulation, including part of the fees, with plans to return these coins through future miner rewards.

Among ZEC holders, 96.6% supported initiating this return in February 2031, with approximately 2.32 million ZEC backing this option. Conversely, around 70,240 ZEC preferred to start the return as soon as possible.

However, results from other surveys varied. A summary on the Zcash forum indicated that panel participants generally favored initiating the return sooner.

Later, Shielded Labs, Project Tachyon, Zcash Open Development Lab, Zcash Foundation, and Valar Group agreed to consider February 2031 as the most conservative interpretation of the results. If necessary, the issue may be put to a new vote.

NU7 Should Not Be Delayed

ZEC holders also backed the disabling of transactions from the outdated Sprout secure pool upon the activation of NU7. Approximately 99.3% voted in favor of launching the update as soon as possible, excluding features that developers cannot prepare by September 30, rather than postponing the entire release.

A separate system was used for voting, ensuring confidentiality. Only ZEC held in Ironwood at the time of the network snapshot were eligible to participate. Votes were encrypted, allowing for counting without revealing balances or individual choices.

The voting results are advisory and do not alter the protocol by themselves. The selected features still need to be implemented, tested, and integrated into NU7.

It is worth noting that on July 28, Zcash activated the Ironwood update after discovering a critical vulnerability in Orchard, which launched a new secure pool and limited the functionality of the previous one.