Zcash token holders have voted to reduce the network's target block time to 25 seconds from 75 seconds and maintain the existing halving schedule in a governance poll on the next major upgrade.
The faster-block proposal received 99.9% of the Zcash (ZEC)-weighted vote, while 98.9% supported preserving halvings, according to results published Monday. Voting power reflected eligible ZEC holdings, with both percentages including abstentions.
The shorter block interval would reduce the expected wait for a transaction's first confirmation. The amount of new ZEC issued per block would decrease proportionally to keep scheduled daily issuance unchanged.
These changes are proposed for NU7, a Zcash network upgrade whose activation date has not yet been determined. Token holders also favored excluding features not implemented by September 30. Developers plan to finalize upgrade items by the September 30 deadline, with testnet and mainnet activation dates to be determined later.
Halving schedule and network economics
Halvings are scheduled reductions that cut the issuance of new ZEC by half. The winning option would preserve this schedule while allowing funds removed from circulation under a separate proposal to be returned through future block rewards.
The Zcash Community Advisory Panel showed a closer division on this issue, with 57 members favoring a gradual issuance curve to replace halvings and 54 supporting the continuation of scheduled halvings.
Network Sustainability Mechanism delayed
Another major feature considered for NU7 was the Network Sustainability Mechanism (NSM), a proposed upgrade to Zcash's economic model that aims to recycle a portion of transaction fees into a pool for future block rewards. Approximately 97% of token holders voted to delay NSM reissuance until February 2031, with 2.3 million ZEC tokens voting to delay and approximately 70,239 tokens voting to implement it immediately.
NSM was proposed in January to address long-term network security concerns, as declining block rewards may eventually become insufficient to incentivize miners to validate transactions. The mechanism would burn and recycle 60% of ZEC transaction fees into future block rewards without exceeding the token's 21 million maximum supply limit.
