Privacy coin Zcash has received a major upgrade: NU7 activated on mainnet on November 6 (block 3,543,405, at approximately 02:34 UTC). The block target time has been reduced from 75 seconds to 25 seconds, making private transaction confirmations about 3 times faster. Orchard shielded transaction throughput has risen from approximately 2.9 TPS to 6.6 TPS; the wait for 3 exchange confirmations could shrink from nearly 4 minutes to about 75 seconds. The fee mechanism has also been adjusted: miners receive 40% of fees, while the remaining 60% goes into a reserve fund, with distributions expected to begin around February 2031. Meanwhile, Sprout, the original privacy pool launched in 2016, has officially been retired. Approximately 12,224 ZEC in the pool can no longer be spent. Developers have discussed recovery options, but none have been approved yet. (Source: Bitcoinist, November 6) $ZEC