Zcash votes on what goes into Network Upgrade 7

@Zcash is putting the shape of its next major protocol upgrade to a community vote, with coinholders and an advisory panel poll set to close on Monday at 19:00 UTC. The outcome will determine the scope of Network Upgrade 7 (NU7), planned to be the ninth major network upgrade for Zcash.

Five Questions on the Ballot

Voters are being asked to weigh in on five distinct questions. The first two concern the Network Sustainability Mechanism: whether to smooth $ZEC issuance rather than keep the current halving schedule, and when the reissuance of previously removed funds should begin. The mechanism seeks to maintain mining incentives consistently without breaching the 21 million coin limit. Zcash already has a burn mechanism to withdraw ZEC from circulation, and NU7 addresses its reissuance. A third question covers retiring the deprecated Sprout pool, and a fourth asks whether to cut block target spacing from 75 seconds to 25, effectively tripling transaction throughput.

The fifth question is arguably the most consequential for timing. It concerns features that cannot be completed before the deadline, with the target implementation date set for September 30, 2026. Options include launching NU7 as soon as possible and leaving out incomplete features, delaying the launch until everything is complete, or voting against implementing NU7 at all.

@Zcash has confirmed that the total $ZEC supply is unaffected regardless of the outcome, and that the advisory panel vote is non-binding.

How the Vote Works

The NU7 coinholder vote opened on August 25, 2026, and is scheduled to close on September 14 at 19:00 UTC. Valar Group and Project Tachyon called for the vote, which lasts approximately 18 days. Organizers set a participation threshold of 1 million ZEC for results to be considered representative.

The process grants eligible ZEC holders voting power linked to their shielded holdings, in contrast to governance mechanisms based on validator participation or delegated voting. Votes are completely anonymous, using El Gamal homomorphic cryptography to conceal individual values, with only the final aggregated results made visible.

Eligibility required ZEC to be spendable and shielded in the Ironwood pool at the snapshot block height of approximately 3,459,350. Supported wallets include Vizor, Zodl, Zkool, and Keystone hardware devices.

If NU7 includes major consensus changes as expected, it will not be supported by zcashd, and users will need to upgrade to the Zebra consensus node developed by the Zcash Foundation.

Sources:
Zcash Official: Network Upgrade 7
Zcash Community Forum: NU7 Coinholder Vote
U.Today: Zcash NU7 Coinholder Vote Explained