Zcash (ZEC) Developers Set NU7 at Block 3,543,405 for Threefold Faster Payments

Block 3,543,405 Sets the November Switch

Zcash (ZEC) developers have scheduled Network Upgrade 7 (NU7), the privacy chain's next hard fork, to activate at block 3,543,405, a height the network is expected to reach around November 5. The plan is written up in ZIP 259, the improvement proposal that fixes the activation height and sets out what changes for node operators. Its most visible effect is speed: block production falls from 75 seconds to 25 seconds, so payments on the privacy-focused layer 1 blockchain protocol confirm roughly three times faster. A deposit on an exchange that today waits about four minutes for three confirmations would clear in roughly 75 seconds under the new cadence.

The upgrade has run on testnet since early October, giving wallet providers and exchanges time to ship compatible software before the switch. One timing caveat stands: as of publication, the agreed block height had not yet been entered into the distribution specification or the node software, so November 5 is a working plan rather than a locked date.

NU7 also retires Zcash's first privacy pool. Sprout shipped with the network at launch in 2016, its parameters generated through the Zcash ceremony, and it stops working entirely at activation. Any ZEC still sitting in a Sprout address at that block becomes unspendable, so holders have roughly two weeks to migrate into supported newer address types. Our earlier NU7 Sprout freeze coverage put the at-risk balance at 22,309 ZEC.

The market has already moved. Zcash price trades near $1,300, up more than 15% over the past week, after climbing from about $1,060 on October 19 to a high close to $1,360 on October 21. That leaves the token with a market cap near $22 billion, the ninth largest crypto asset. Until the block arrives, nothing changes on-chain; every 75-second block between now and then pays miners exactly as before.

ZIP 235 Defers 60% of Fees

NU7 also rewrites how miners are paid. Today the miner who adds a block keeps every fee inside it. Under ZIP 235, the fee-side proposal that ships with the upgrade, miners keep 40% of the fees collected in each block while the remaining 60% is withheld from circulation and returned as extra rewards starting in February 2031. The schedule was designed so Zcash's existing halving calendar, which cuts block rewards in half roughly every four years, stays untouched. Deferred fees give miners income that does not shrink with each subsidy cut, which matters for a proof-of-work network whose security rests on hash power staying online.

Faster blocks do not mint more coins. The network currently releases 1.5625 ZEC per block; after NU7, three blocks land inside the same 75-second window and the reward is split across them, so the per-block payout drops to roughly a third while total issuance stays the same. The 21 million hard cap stands, with about 16.99 million ZEC already in circulation. Zcash has done this once before: the Blossom upgrade in December 2019 cut the interval from 150 seconds to the current 75. For merchants and exchange settlement desks the change is practical, because wait times measured in minutes are where even a fast chain starts to feel slow, and NU7 pushes that floor down again.

Derivatives positioning shows how much of the upgrade is already priced. Perpetual futures contract trading carries about $4.55 billion in open interest, close to four times the token's $1.15 billion in 24-hour spot volume. Leverage stacked that heavily around a fixed activation date tends to make price swings sharper in both directions.

Leverage Clusters Around a Fixed Date

Read together, the two developments share one deadline. The activation height exists in a ZIP but not yet in shipped node software, so execution risk sits with node operators, wallets and exchanges over the next two weeks, while Sprout holders face the hardest cutoff since their balances freeze outright at the block. With $4.55 billion in open interest stacked against a dated event, swings should cluster around block 3,543,405 rather than arrive gradually. Shielded-pool flows are already drawing attention after wallets tied to the Bitget hack moved 2,746 ZEC into the Ironwood shielded pool, and our Zcash coverage will keep tracking them. For levels into the switch, Zcash technical analysis tracks the key bands. The structural change to watch is the fee deferral, whose six-year runway to the February 2031 payout starts the moment the first 25-second block lands.