ZEC supply
Why is ZEC's block reward smaller than Bitcoin's?
⏱ Zcash blocks come 8× as often
A Bitcoin block arrives about every 10 minutes; a Zcash block every 75 seconds. Smaller rewards, paid 8 times as often, add up to more new coins per hour.
🌸 Upgrades split the reward
The Blossom upgrade (2019) made blocks twice as frequent and cut each block's reward in half at the same moment. NU7 (block #3,543,405, November 2026) does the same with a factor of three: 25-second blocks, each with a third of the reward. New ZEC per hour doesn't change, but the per-block number does.
📅 Bitcoin has a 7-year head start
Bitcoin launched in 2009 and has had more halvings. Zcash launched in 2016, so it is earlier in the same kind of schedule: same 21 million cap, halvings about every 4 years.
| Zcash (ZEC) | Bitcoin (BTC) | |
|---|---|---|
Supply curve
Share of each coin's maximum supply issued over timeSolid lines are history; dashed lines follow each protocol's schedule into the future.
Halvings and milestones
Past dates are when the block was actually mined. Future dates assume one block every 75 seconds until NU7 (block #3,543,405) and every 25 seconds after.
| Event | Block | Date | Reward per block | New ZEC per day | ZEC issued by then |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Why the supply is slightly below the schedule
⛏ Miners can claim less, never more
Each block's miner writes its own reward into the block. The rules allow up to the full amount (new coins plus fees) but not a zatoshi more. Anything a miner leaves out is never created. Since NU6 (2024) miners must claim the full amount, so this no longer happens.
⏱ Not about block speed
Both numbers are for the same block, so blocks arriving faster or slower than the target doesn't change the difference. Block timing only moves the dates of future halvings.
🔥 Burned coins still count
ZEC sent to a “burn” address that nobody can spend from still exists on the chain, so it's included in our node's count. It can't explain the difference.
| Period | Blocks | ZEC never created |
|---|---|---|
Most of it comes from two episodes: Zcash's first weeks in late 2016, and a few days in late March 2020 when blocks from one mining pool paid out about 1.25 ZEC less than allowed (for example block #777,503, which claimed 3.7496536 ZEC of the 5 ZEC miner reward).
Where each block's new ZEC goes
Every block's reward is split by protocol rules. Miners have always received 80%; the other 20% has funded Zcash development in different ways over time.
| Period | Blocks | Miners | The other 20% |
|---|---|---|---|
| Oct 2016 – Nov 2020 | 0 – 1,046,399 | 80% | Founders' Reward |
| Nov 2020 – Nov 2024 | 1,046,400 – 2,726,399 | 80% | Dev Fund: 7% Electric Coin Co., 5% Zcash Foundation, 8% Major Grants |
| Nov 2024 – today | 2,726,400 onward | 80% | 12% to the lockbox (below), 8% Zcash Community Grants |
The dev fund lockbox
Since NU6, part of every block reward goes into a lockbox: a balance held by the protocol itself, not by any person or organization. Nobody holds keys to it; ZEC can only leave under rules set by a network upgrade. Every figure here is read from our own node.
Lockbox balance since NU6
Payouts from the lockbox
| Block | Date | ZEC paid out |
|---|---|---|
Good to know
🐢 The slow start
Zcash's first 20,000 blocks paid rewards that grew from almost zero to 12.5 ZEC, to protect the network while mining got going. That issued 125,000 ZEC instead of 250,000.
🧢 Just under 21 million
Each halving rounds the reward down to a whole zatoshi (0.00000001 ZEC), so the last fractions are never issued. The true cap is 20,999,999.8152 ZEC.
🔒 Shielded or not, it's counted
The supply includes ZEC in the shielded pools. Their totals are public even though individual balances are private. See Shielded Pools.