Zcash to freeze $16M in its oldest privacy pool with NU7 upgrade

The NU7 network upgrade will disable the transaction type needed to spend from Sprout, leaving roughly 12,226 ZEC stranded unless holders migrate first Zcash is about to retire its oldest privacy pool. When it does, about $16 million in ZEC still sitting there will become unspendable. The cutoff arrives with the NU7 network upgrade, scheduled to activate around November 5–6, 2026, at block height 3,543,405. Anyone with coins left in the Sprout pool after that block will still own them. They just won’t be able to move them. What NU7 actually changes NU7 disables version 4 transactions. The catch is that version 4 transactions are the only way to reach the Sprout shielded pool. A shielded pool is a section of the Zcash ledger where transaction details are kept private. Sprout was the first one, launched back in 2016. Sprout currently holds approximately 12,226 ZEC. With ZEC recently averaging $1,300 to $1,320, that stash comes to around $16 million. The coins are not burned, and nobody is confiscating private keys. The ZEC stays counted in the total supply. But once NU7 is live, any attempt to transact with Sprout funds will fail. There is currently no mechanism to recover them after...