In brief – Zcash’s NU7 upgrade went live early Friday, activating a mechanism that removes 60% of transaction fees from circulation to fund future block rewards. – Reissuance will begin in 2031 on top of the existing halving schedule, preserving Zcash’s 21 million coin supply…
p. – Separately, Zcash’s coinholders and community panels will vote this month on the future of Zcash Community Grants’ share of the network’s Dev Fund. Zcash’s NU7 network upgrade went live at block 3,543,405 early Friday, activating the Network Sustainability Mechanism (NSM), a change designed to help pay for the privacy coin’s security as its block rewards shrink. “NU7 has successfully activated on mainnet
A new era of Zcash is here,” the project’s official account tweeted. NU7 has successfully activated on mainnet. A new era of Zcash is here. $ZEC pic. — Zcash 🛡️ (@Zcash) November 6, 2026 “This is a huge milestone for Shielded Labs,” Jason McGee of Shielded Labs, the Zcash development organization behind the mechanism, tweeted ahead of the activation.
The NSM tackles a problem Bitcoin: whether, as block subsidies decline with each halving, transaction fees alone will be enough to pay miners to secure the network. Under the mechanism, 60% of transaction fees will be removed from circulation and gradually reissued through future block rewards, while preserving the 21 million ZEC supply cap. Reissuance will begin in 2031, with the recycled funds spread along a smooth curve on top of the existing halving schedule. inherited fromThe NSM was Shielded Labs’ first project and builds on an idea that developer Nate Wilcox proposed years ago, originally called the Zcash Posterity Fund, McGee said.