Zcash NU7 upgrade would disable spending from Sprout pool

The proposed NU7 upgrade would stop accepting version 4 transactions that allow users to spend funds in Zcash's legacy Sprout shielded pool. ZEC left in the Sprout pool would become unspendable after the upgrade. The proposal would not burn the funds. The proposal leaves open the possibility of restoring access later. It warns that holders may never be able to spend funds left in the pool. A user posting as "vaspholdings" urged ZEC holders to check old wallets before the upgrade. Those wallets may contain Sprout ZEC, transparent ZEC or both. Only Sprout funds face the proposed restriction. Zcash co-founder Zooko Wilcox also shared the warning on X. NU7 is scheduled to activate on testnet Oct. 6. Zcash expects to decide on Oct. 20 whether to proceed with the targeted Nov. 5 mainnet activation. The upgrade would cut Zcash's target block time from 75 seconds to 25 seconds. Planned issuance changes would preserve the network's halving schedule. CoinGecko listed ZEC at $1,627.82 at the time of writing. ZEC was up 8% over the past 24 hours. ZEC was up almost 40% over the past week.