Zcash eyes a 20-second sprint just days after NU7’s big time cut ⏱️

Zcash developers ValarDragon and Evan Forbes have submitted a draft Zcash Improvement Proposal seeking to reduce the network’s target block interval from 25 seconds to 20 seconds. The proposal was posted on the Zcash community forum on Sunday and remains unapproved, with the developers requesting inclusion in the next community poll and consideration for the upcoming NU7.1 network upgrade.

The proposed change would shorten the expected wait for initial transaction confirmations, benefiting point-of-sale payments, exchange deposits and cross-chain swaps. Developers said producing blocks more frequently would not increase the network’s overall daily capacity for private transactions or place significantly greater demands on nodes and wallets. The proposal would also change network limits while preserving Zcash’s existing issuance schedule.

Tests associated with the proposal recorded orphan rates of 1.9% to 3.3%, meeting previous safety benchmarks. Unlike the ZIP 218 proposal deployed alongside NU7, the new draft is a smaller adjustment focused specifically on reducing block-production delays.

The proposal comes days after Zcash activated the NU7 upgrade on the mainnet on Friday. NU7 cut the target block interval from 75 seconds to 25 seconds and introduced a Network Sustainability Mechanism designed to recycle a portion of transaction fees into future mining rewards while preserving Zcash’s 21 million ZEC supply cap.