Zcash is about to make roughly $16 million of its coins unspendable. About 12,226 ZEC were still in Sprout, the network’s oldest privacy pool, on Thursday morning, down from about 22,263 a week earlier, according to ZecStats data cited by CoinDesk. The pool is emptying because the NU7 network upgrade, scheduled for block 3,543,405, will reject version-4 transactions, the only format that can spend Sprout coins.
Under ZIP 2003, any balance left in the pool when the upgrade activates cannot be spent. About 9,094 ZEC left Sprout on Sunday alone, while only 40 ZEC moved on Wednesday. At roughly $1,300 per ZEC, the remaining balance is worth about $16 million. Blockchair showed the chain at block 3,542,391 at 05:24 UTC on Thursday, which puts activation near 9:30 p.m. Eastern Time, although it could slip into the early hours of Friday in Asia.
The coins are not destroyed and stay in the circulating supply. ZIP 2003 leaves open the option of restoring access in a future upgrade, but it warns that spending may never be re-enabled, so holders should treat the funds as frozen.
NU7 also cuts the target block time from 75 seconds to 25 seconds. Zcash has been one of the stronger large assets in the post-election rebound, with ZEC up about 12% on Thursday ahead of the upgrade.
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