Zcash developers proposed to shorten the block interval from 25 seconds to 20 seconds

Zcash developers proposed to shorten the blockchain target block interval from 25 seconds to 20 seconds to accelerate transaction confirmation speed. On Sunday, developers ValarDragon and Evan Forbes submitted a draft of a Zcash Improvement Proposal (ZIP) to the Zcash community forum, hoping that this change will be included in the next community vote and considered in the upcoming NU7.1 network upgrade.

According to the proposal, shortening the block interval will reduce the expected waiting time for the first transaction confirmation, thereby improving the user experience for offline payments, exchange deposits, and cross-chain swaps. The developers stated that this change will not increase the overall processing capacity for daily privacy transactions on the network; at the same time, despite more frequent block generation, the proposal will maintain Zcash's existing issuance schedule.

The proposal was made a few days after the NU7 upgrade went live. On Friday, the NU7 upgrade activated on the mainnet, shortening the network target block interval from 75 seconds to 25 seconds. This upgrade also introduced a network sustainability mechanism, using part of the transaction fees collected for future mining rewards while maintaining Zcash's supply cap of 21 million ZEC.