Zcash November Upgrade Could Freeze Old Sprout Funds

Zcash's planned NU7 network upgrade would lock away ZEC sitting in the network's original shielded pool, with a targeted mainnet activation on Nov. 5, and holders with funds in the legacy Sprout pool can still move them before that date.

For a holder, that reads as: freeze first, unfreeze maybe, if ever. The change sits in ZIP-2003, which would tell nodes to stop accepting the older transaction format Sprout funds rely on for spending. The proposal itself does not "burn" Sprout ZEC, but it warns holders "may never be able to spend funds left in the pool," and only "leaves open" the possibility of restoring access later, without committing to a timeline for it.

Only Sprout ZEC is affected, because a wallet may hold Sprout and transparent ZEC in the same address, and the transparent side uses a later transaction format that the upgrade leaves untouched. Zcash launched Sprout in 2016 as its first shielded pool, and Sapling, the default shielded pool today, uses the newer format and would not change under this upgrade.

From Oct. 6 testnet to a Nov. 5 mainnet target

NU7 is scheduled to activate on testnet on Oct. 6, and Zcash expects to decide on Oct. 20 whether to proceed with the targeted Nov. 5 mainnet activation, so the freeze remains a proposal and not a date until that decision lands.

The same upgrade also shortens Zcash's target block time from 75 seconds to 25 seconds and adjusts issuance in a way that preserves the network's existing halving schedule, putting the Sprout change inside a broader set of protocol edits rather than a standalone fix.

ZEC traded at $1,627.82, up 8% in the past 24 hours and almost 40% over the past week, according to CoinGecko, as reported alongside the upgrade news on Sep. 23.