The privacy-focused cryptocurrency ZCash is preparing for its first-ever halving. Activation is expected to occur on November 18 on block #1,046,400.<\/p>\n
As a result of the halving, miners’ rewards will drop from 6.25 ZEC to 3.125 ZEC. At the same time, the fifth major upgrade named Canopy<\/a> will be activated. It will launch the Network Development Fund and enhance ZCash\u2019s security.<\/p>\n The forthcoming changes behind the development of the cryptocurrency Electric Coin Company (ECC) and the Zcash Foundation were agreed<\/a> in July. The Canopy upgrade includes five ZIP proposals to improve the ZCash blockchain (ZIPs).<\/p>\n Activation of ZIP-207<\/strong> and ZIP-214<\/strong> will create the Network Development Fund. The first proposal defines a mechanism for supporting funding streams allocated from a portion of the block reward. The second describes changes to the consensus rules regarding the proposed structure of the development fund. The new rules will be in effect for the next four years.<\/p>\n With their activation, the share of miners from the reward funds will amount to 80%. Of the remaining 20% of funds, 8% will go to the Grants Fund, 7% will be reserved for ECC, and 5% for the Zcash Foundation.<\/p>\n ZIP-211<\/strong> will disable the ability to add new values to the balances of pools that support the old-format Sprout addresses. In doing so, developers take another step toward a full deprecation of the old Sprout (the first iteration of Zcash), reducing the attack surface on the network and the overall complexity of the source code.<\/p>\n ZIP-212<\/strong> will address potential privacy compromises associated with using diversified addresses. In particular, the proposal would avoid assumptions about the reliability of zk-SNARK technology.<\/p>\n ZIP-215<\/strong> will modify the signature validity criteria of Ed25519 signatures used in Sprout transactions, making them compatible with batch verification.<\/p>\n From a technical standpoint, the forthcoming upgrade, like all previous major upgrades to the Zcash network, is a hard fork. Accordingly, node operators will need to update their software. To facilitate the process, the developers released a dedicated guide<\/a>.<\/p>\n In early October, the Electric Coin Company, by a majority vote of investors and stakeholders, decided to reorganize and come under the control of a newly created nonprofit company Bootstrap Project.<\/p>\n A majority of the investors and owners have informed us of their generous willingness to donate ECC in support of our shared mission to empower everyone with economic freedom.https:\/\/t.co\/ho9nViwgrq<\/a>#Zcash<\/a> $ZEC<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Electric Coin Company (@ElectricCoinCo) October 12, 2020<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n