Overview
- Developers announced a target mainnet activation of Nov. 5, 2026, after unanimous agreement on NU7 and a planned testnet run that begins Oct. 6 with a final go/no‑go review on Oct. 20.
- ZIP‑218 will cut block spacing from 75 seconds to 25 seconds and proportionally reduce the per‑block reward so total daily ZEC issuance by wall‑clock time stays the same.
- ZIP‑235 will remove at least 60% of transaction fees from circulation now and schedule their reissuance as extra block subsidy beginning February 2031 to bolster miner income later.
- NU7 will disable legacy Sprout version‑4 transactions, preventing further spending from the Sprout shielded pool (under ~23,000 ZEC), and requires Zakura and Zebra node parity plus updates from exchanges, explorers and indexers.
- The upgrade’s November target depends on successful cross‑implementation tests and infrastructure readiness because stress tests showed higher stale‑block rates and operators must prove they can follow three times the block frequency.