In mid-September 2026, the Zcash community inscribed the matter of "technical pace" into the parameter table through an on-chain vote centered around NU7: approximately 2.4 million ZEC participated in governance, accounting for two-thirds of the eligible ZEC at the time of the snapshot, with the majority support rate for most topics highly concentrated between 96% and 99%. The community almost unanimously agreed to compress the block time from 75 seconds to 25 seconds (ZIP 218 received approximately 99.9% support), continued to adopt a Bitcoin-like halving mechanism for issuance (support rate approximately 98.9%), and aimed to launch the NU7 upgrade as soon as it was ready (approximately 99.3% support), making "launching early and iterating" a collective choice. Regarding funding and sustainability, about 96.6% of participating ZEC preferred to postpone the NSM fee reissuance until February 2031, while also supporting the inclusion of the phase-out of the early privacy system Sprout in this upgrade, formally bidding farewell to the first generation of privacy technology stack. Almost concurrently, Jack Dorsey pointed his criticism towards frontier AI regulation, publicly opposing negotiations over computing power and training pace behind closed doors between the government and leading companies, emphasizing the importance of open release of model weights, allowing independent researchers to review and replicate results. These two technically independent governance events have yet to demonstrate causal interconnections, but they raised the same question in the same timeframe: who defines the pace of future technology development, the token holders voting on-chain, or the few institutions controlling computing power and models.
2.4 million ZEC cast affirmative votes: NU7 upgrade declaration
According to data from AiCoin, approximately 2.4 million ZEC participated in the governance vote regarding NU7, accounting for about two-thirds of the eligible ZEC at the time of the snapshot. For a chain centered around privacy narratives, such participation signifies a rare collective manifestation: holders proactively transformed their accounting rights into explicit voting on the network's evolution direction, rather than leaving the technical route entirely to a few developers and researchers to decide.
On specific issues, the voting results were almost overwhelmingly in favor of the "acceleration faction." About 99.9% of participating ZEC supported reducing the block time from 75 seconds to 25 seconds (ZIP 218), backing a quicker confirmation experience with nearly unanimous opinion; around 98.9% of participating ZEC chose to maintain the existing Bitcoin-like halving mechanism, rejecting the adoption of alternative issuance schemes, continuing the consistent emphasis on hard-money issuance discipline; about 99.3% of participating ZEC supported launching NU7 as soon as the technical preparations were ready, rather than intentionally extending the timeline. Around key parameters like NSM fee reissuance timing and Sprout phase-out, the community also exhibited relatively concentrated preferences—approximately 96.6% of participating ZEC were reported to support postponing the start time for NSM fee reissuance to February 2021, this figure still awaits confirmation from additional sources, but together with the trend of including Sprout's phase-out in the NU7 upgrade, it constitutes boundary conditions that the development team must adhere to in their next design steps. Thus, NU7 is no longer just a theoretical concept within technical discussions but is defined by a high percentage of affirmative votes from token holders as the direction of the next significant upgrade, providing a clear governance authorization basis for subsequent implementation.
Bitcoin-like halving unchanged, community bets on faster confirmations
Among the many options for NU7, the most narratively significant is the issuance policy. About 98.9% of participating ZEC clearly rejected altering the existing Bitcoin-like halving mechanism in this upgrade, continuing to lock in "limited, predictable supply curves" as Zcash's underlying setting. For a long time, this chain has balanced privacy and a Bitcoin-like narrative of scarcity, and now token holders have used their votes to re-embed this self-identity into the protocol: ZEC is viewed as a privacy asset requiring strict monetary discipline, rather than a playground where rules can be rewritten at will.
In contrast to the conservatism regarding the issuance curve, the community's choices regarding user experience were almost overwhelmingly radical. About 99.9% of participating ZEC supported reducing the block time from 75 seconds to 25 seconds, lowering block generation intervals to a third of their original, which significantly shortens the confirmation waiting time for everyday transactions and private trades, allowing merchants and users to complete payments and receipts at a pace closer to real-time. Thus, NU7 is assigned a dual mission: it must not undermine Zcash's scarcity as a "hard-money" privacy asset while enhancing network usability and efficiency through faster confirmations; this choice seeking balance between discipline and speed is itself a clear expression of governance.
Postponed NSM reissuance, Sprout moving towards retirement
Once the community reached a consensus within the framework of "faster block generation, continuing halving discipline," attention quickly turned to the network's funding pace. Regarding the NSM fee reissuance arrangements linked to sustainability, the majority of participating ZEC leaned towards pressing the "postpone button": statistics indicate that approximately 96.6% of participating ZEC supported delaying the reissuance start time to February 2031, this proportion is currently still viewed as a reference data needing further confirmation from singular sources. Instead of releasing this portion of fees early, the community opted to extend the funding buffer for the next decade, trading time for space, preemptively locking in a more conservative launch point without finalizing details, avoiding adding extra issuance pressure on the network within the current cycle.
In contrast to the "delayed profit distribution," there is decisive handling of the old privacy technology stack. The voting results support including the phase-out of the early privacy system Sprout in the NU7 upgrade, signaling that the technology route, which once carried the Zcash privacy narrative, will officially exit mainstream support. Financial arrangements related to it were intentionally pushed back while historical components that pose a heavier burden on potential security and maintenance are quickly added to the elimination list. The privacy network made a decision here by firmly clutching the gate of long-term incentives and sustainability while simultaneously accelerating the clearance of technical debts and legacy risks. This dual adjustment of funding pace and technology stack reveals the increasingly mature trade-off logic of the privacy network between long-term safety and current risks.
Dorsey supports stringent AI scrutiny but opposes closed regulatory alliances
If the Zcash community returned technical pacing to the token holders through a NU7 vote, then in the debate surrounding frontier AI, Jack Dorsey directed his criticism towards another form of the "few people making decisions" pathway. In mid-September 2026, he publicly stated that cutting-edge AI capabilities indeed require serious scrutiny, independent evaluations, and long-term planning, and safety assessments cannot be omitted processes. However, he believes that this safety work should not be negotiated behind closed doors by the government and a few leading AI companies, setting computing power quotas, training limitations, and even overall development pace for the entire industry in the process, as that resembles a closed regulatory alliance rather than technology governance in the public interest.
Contrasting this criticism is his "open-minded security perspective": to genuinely evaluate and restrict leading models, it is essential to openly publish model weights, allowing external and independent researchers to replicate model behaviors, systematically discover potential issues, and subsequently develop alternative solutions or protective tools. Dorsey treats transparency and verifiability as prerequisites for security rather than opposites of safety, and this principle extends to his company's practice—Block is developing open-source AI and provides models, computing power, and public facilities support for independent researchers and security researchers, fulfilling his notion of an open regulatory pathway through infrastructure and resource sharing, forming a long-term and systematic hedge against the closed regulatory alliance model.
On-chain voting meets AI open-source: a crossroads in technology governance
The NU7 governance vote concluded in mid-September 2026, with about two-thirds of eligible ZEC participating and multiple agenda support rates exceeding 96%. On critical parameters like block time, halving mechanism, upgrade rhythm, NSM fee reissuance, and Sprout phase-out, holders and developers provided highly concentrated preference signals through on-chain tools, yet they allowed for the finalization of specific timelines and technical details to remain open for public processes; almost simultaneously, Dorsey voiced concerns regarding frontier AI regulation, opposing the closed negotiation alliances between the government and leading companies concerning computing power and training limitations, advocating for the use of open model weights and independent evaluations to determine the pace of technological advancement. One side is using voting weights to make the protocol's future "clear," while the other is using open-source practices to "undermine" regulatory alliances; they show no known causal relationship at the factual level but collectively outline the crossroads of technology governance in 2026: will the pace of technological evolution be negotiated by on-chain token holders and development teams, or predetermined behind closed doors by policymakers and a few large companies? It remains worth observing whether the community can maintain similar levels of participation and concentrated consensus during the implementation of NU7 as well as whether the debates around open model weights and security control will shift AI regulation from closed negotiations towards more verifiable and participatory balanced solutions.
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