Zcash coinholders voted overwhelmingly to speed up the network and leave its bitcoin-style halving schedule alone, settling the scope of NU7, the next major Zcash upgrade. Nearly 2.4 million ZEC took part out of roughly 3.6 million eligible at the snapshot, about two-thirds, well above the 1 million ZEC organizers had set as the threshold for treating the result as representative.

Some 99.9% of participating ZEC backed cutting the time between blocks to 25 seconds from 75, which should shorten how long users wait for payments to confirm. Another 98.9% voted to keep halvings, the scheduled cuts that halve newly issued ZEC paid to miners at fixed intervals, instead of a gradual reduction. Voters also chose to disable transactions tied to Sprout, Zcash’s obsolete original privacy pool, and about 99.3% wanted NU7 shipped as soon as possible, dropping any feature not implemented by a Sept. 30 readiness deadline.

The halving result keeps Zcash’s monetary policy pointed at bitcoin’s. Holders separately voted 96.6% to wait until February 2031 before reissuing ZEC collected through the Network Sustainability Mechanism, which pulls at least 60% of transaction fees out of circulation and eventually recycles them through block rewards without changing the maximum supply. The delay lets several years of fees accumulate before any of it returns to miners.

Only ZEC held in Ironwood, Zcash’s newest shielded pool, was eligible, and ballots were encrypted and split into 16 pieces so validators could tally the outcome without learning who voted or how much ZEC they controlled. Turnout was a sharp jump from February’s sentiment poll, which drew participation equal to 7.25% of circulating ZEC. On the reissuance date, advisory bodies split from coinholders: panel voters preferred starting as soon as possible, while coinholders chose 2031. Shielded Labs, Project Tachyon, ZODL, the Zcash Foundation and Valar Group said Tuesday they are aligned on February 2031 as the most conservative reading of the results.

The vote does not change the network on its own. The selected features still have to be implemented, tested and folded into the upgrade itself.