ZEC’s NU7 upgrade is reportedly set to disable v4 transactions; if activated as currently proposed, funds remaining in the legacy Sprout privacy pool may become unspendable.
The concern is not that wallets across the network will be frozen, but that reducing the protocol’s burden could leave a small number of holders in the old pool unable to control their funds. According to public discussions, Sprout currently relies on v4 transactions for withdrawals and holds about 22,000 ZEC. The ban could also affect other transactions that use v4, but these claims still need to be checked against the final proposal.
The funds would not be destroyed: even if they cannot be spent for now, whether access can be restored in the future will depend on subsequent rules. The available information is mainly secondhand accounts of the proposal, and neither the pool’s balance nor the mainnet activation date has been independently confirmed.
The key questions are whether the final rules retain the ban, when it would take effect, and whether the old pool will have a way to withdraw funds. Is it acceptable to reduce the protocol’s maintenance burden at the cost of potentially leaving people who still hold the keys unable to transfer their funds for a long time?
The concern is not that wallets across the network will be frozen, but that reducing the protocol’s burden could leave a small number of holders in the old pool unable to control their funds. According to public discussions, Sprout currently relies on v4 transactions for withdrawals and holds about 22,000 ZEC. The ban could also affect other transactions that use v4, but these claims still need to be checked against the final proposal.
The funds would not be destroyed: even if they cannot be spent for now, whether access can be restored in the future will depend on subsequent rules. The available information is mainly secondhand accounts of the proposal, and neither the pool’s balance nor the mainnet activation date has been independently confirmed.
The key questions are whether the final rules retain the ban, when it would take effect, and whether the old pool will have a way to withdraw funds. Is it acceptable to reduce the protocol’s maintenance burden at the cost of potentially leaving people who still hold the keys unable to transfer their funds for a long time?