Key points

  • About 2.4 million ZEC participated, roughly two-thirds of the eligible balance at the snapshot and above the 1 million ZEC threshold.
  • Coinholders overwhelmingly backed 25-second target blocks, retaining scheduled halvings and delaying fee reissuance until February 2031.
  • The ballot is a governance signal rather than an automatic network change; specifications, implementation, testing and upgrade activation still remain.

Zcash coinholders have delivered a strong governance signal for faster transactions without abandoning the network's Bitcoin-style halving schedule. Results posted on September 14 show about 2.4 million ZEC participated, compared with roughly 3.6 million ZEC eligible at the snapshot. That is approximately 66% participation and comfortably above the 1 million ZEC threshold set for the ballot.

Faster blocks won near-unanimous support

The clearest operational result concerned block cadence. According to the published tally, 99.9% of participating ZEC supported reducing the target interval from 75 seconds to 25 seconds. The proposal is intended to cut average inclusion latency by about two-thirds. Its supporting material also projects higher Orchard throughput, while acknowledging costs including three times as many blocks, more consensus work and a higher stale-block rate. Daily ZEC issuance would not change simply because blocks arrive more frequently.

Coinholders chose halvings over a smooth curve

On issuance, 2,375,932.375 ZEC backed preserving scheduled halvings, or 98.9% of the participating balance reported in the results summary. A much smaller amount favored replacing the step-down schedule with a gradual issuance curve. The choice does not reject the Network Sustainability Mechanism's fee-recycling concept. Instead, it keeps new-coin issuance on the existing halving path while allowing previously removed fees and donated funds to be reintroduced into future miner rewards under separate rules.

The preferred reissuance date is 2031

A separate question produced a 96.6% preference for February 2031 as the point when fee reissuance should begin. That differed from several community panels, where more voters favored starting as soon as possible. After the poll, representatives associated with the Zcash Foundation, Shielded Labs, Project Tachyon, Zcash Open Development Lab and Valar Group said they had aligned on February 2031 as the conservative interpretation. They also noted that a later poll could revisit the timing if conditions change.

NU7 scope received a broader mandate

Coinholders also favored disabling legacy version 4 transactions at NU7 activation and supported shipping the upgrade as soon as feasible, with features removed if they are not ready by the stated cutoff. The faster-block proposal was developed alongside per-pool action limits intended to constrain block size. These choices affect wallet developers, node operators, miners and exchanges because shorter intervals and transaction-format changes can require compatibility work before activation.

The ballot does not activate code

The result is advisory governance input, not a network upgrade by itself. Features must still be fully specified, implemented, audited where required, tested and incorporated into a release accepted by the network. The published voting material explicitly treats readiness as a condition for inclusion. That distinction matters: users should not assume Zcash is already producing 25-second blocks or that fee reissuance has begun.

Participation was private but balance-weighted

Eligibility came from Orchard funds captured for the registration snapshot, and voting was conducted through a privacy-preserving wallet mechanism. The tally therefore reflects eligible ZEC balances rather than one person, one vote. Large holders carried proportionally more influence, even though ballot privacy protected how individual balances voted. The unusually broad balance participation gives implementers a clear signal, but it cannot substitute for engineering review or independent testing. Whether shorter intervals remain stable under real network conditions, and how quickly wallets and services adapt, will determine the practical effect. The technical trade-offs and final NU7 schedule remain the next tests.

Sources

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