Zcash developers are targeting Nov. 5 for NU7 mainnet activation, with testnet deployment planned for Oct. 6 and a final decision scheduled for Oct. 20. The upgrade would reduce target block times from 75 seconds to 25 seconds, preserve the existing halving schedule and introduce the Network Sustainability Mechanism. Coinholder polling showed 99.9% support for 25-second blocks and 98.9% support for retaining halvings. Earlier polling involved about 2.4 million ZEC, or 66% of the eligible pool, with 96.6% selecting February 2031 for the return of temporarily withheld fees to miners. NU7 would divide each block reward by three, extend the halving interval from 1.68 million to 5.04 million blocks and temporarily remove roughly 60% of transaction fees from circulation. ZEC gained roughly 32% from Sept. 15 to 17 and approached $1,500 as Zcash social volume reached a one-month high. X accounted for 85% of tracked mentions on Sept. 17, running 6.8 times above its 29-day baseline, although repeated whitelist-application posts appeared to drive much of the activity. Paradigm co-founder Matt Huang disclosed that the firm holds ZEC and described Zcash as a private complement to Bitcoin. The rally has coincided with a dispute over the 20% of block rewards directed to the Zcash Dev Fund, including disagreements over grant dependence, inflation-funded public goods and representative governance. European Union anti-money-laundering rules taking effect July 10, 2027, and MiCA restrictions on assets with built-in anonymization add regulatory pressure for privacy-focused tokens.