01Why Zcash is not mined on CPUs
Zcash’s proof of work is Equihash. Zcash’s own mining guide says that at the current network difficulty you must use an ASIC to mine it. A desktop CPU can still compute Equihash, but it is not competitive with that hardware.
Zecnero’s specification looked at keeping Equihash with new parameters and did not: ASICs that support several parameter sets have been sold, so new parameters would delay specialized hardware without preventing it. It chose RandomX instead, which runs randomly generated programs modelled on general-purpose processors, so the hardware that runs it well looks like the desktop you already own.
02What the fork changes
Zecnero is Zcash at network upgrade NU6 with a short, fixed list of changes. These are the ones that concern mining; Zecnero vs Zcash lists every one.
| Zcash | Zecnero | |
|---|---|---|
| Proof of work | Equihash | RandomX-Zecnero, algorithm rx/zecnero: the RandomX v1.2 settings with its own Argon2 salt, ZecneroRX + 0x01 |
| Mining hardware in practice | ASICs | Desktop CPUs. A GPU adds little. |
| What is hashed | The header and its Equihash solution | The first 140 bytes of the header, every field before the solution, under a key that changes every 2,048 blocks |
| Header | Carries the Equihash solution | The Zcash layout, 141 bytes, with an empty solution field |
| Difficulty | Averages 17 blocks, with limited adjustment | aserti3-2d. Half-life 1 hour from network upgrade NU1 (Mainnet from block 1); the testnet uses 2 hours until its upgrade at block 16,529 |
| Block time | 75 seconds | 75 seconds |
| Block hash | Unchanged. The RandomX hash is used only for the proof-of-work check; blocks are identified by the same block hash as in Zcash. | |
03What it keeps from Zcash
- The shielded pools. Sapling and Orchard keys, notes, commitments, nullifiers, note encryption and proofs are Zcash’s, unchanged, and so are the Sapling parameters from Zcash’s multi-party ceremony. Sprout, Zcash’s oldest pool, is removed.
- Transparent addresses, for mining rewards. From network upgrade NU1 only a coinbase transaction may create a transparent output, and mined coins are shielded before they are spent. Mainnet has NU1 from block 1. The testnet switches at block 16,529, expected around October 8, 2026 at 22:00 UTC.
- The shape of issuance. 6.25 ZMR per block, halving every 1,680,000 blocks (about four years at 75 seconds a block), zero after 30 halvings, 20,999,993.5652 ZMR in total. There is no tail emission. One ZMR is 100,000,000 neros.
- The node.
zecnerodis Zebra, the Zcash Foundation’s Rust node, with the changes above.
Zecnero is a chain of its own, starting from its own genesis block. It is not a token, and it does not copy Zcash balances.
04The RandomX key and what it means for your computer
RandomX hashes under a key. In Zecnero, as in Monero, the key is the hash of an earlier block: it changes every 2,048 blocks, about every 42.7 hours, and is fixed 64 blocks before it is first used. When it changes, the miner rebuilds its dataset and pauses briefly.
- Mining uses RandomX fast mode, with a dataset of about 2,080 MiB per key. The mining guide asks for a computer with 8 GB of memory.
- Verifying uses light mode: a 256 MiB cache and a few milliseconds per hash. The specification has a node make every cheaper header check before it computes the hash.
- The nonce sits at bytes 108 to 139 of the 140 hashed bytes. Miners vary bytes 108 to 111, and pools hand out the rest as an extra nonce.
Monero’s RandomX uses the salt RandomX + 0x03. A different salt gives an unrelated cache, dataset and hash function, so hardware and software built only for Monero’s configuration cannot mine Zecnero unchanged. Nothing stops anyone from adding rx/zecnero to a miner, and the security of Zecnero does not depend on it.
05Allocation
There is no premine, no presale and no dev fund. The one allocation is the founder stream: each block from 1 to 1,679,999 pays 3% of its subsidy, 0.1875 ZMR, to a published 2-of-3 multisig (P2SH) address. That is 314,999.8125 ZMR, 1.5% of all ZMR ever issued, and it stops at the first halving. Nodes reject a block that leaves it out. No height is reserved for any miner.
Zcash had a Founders’ Reward for its first four years, and since 2020 a development fund takes a share of each block reward. Zecnero removes both and has the founder stream in their place.
06Try it on the testnet
The public testnet can be mined today with one command, on Linux or on Windows through WSL. Testnet coins have no value; it is where the software is tried before Mainnet. How to mine Zecnero walks through it, and how mining works explains the pool, solo mining and the reward split.
How to mine Zecnero →Sources
- Zcash mining needs an ASIC: Zcash documentation, mining guide
- Equihash, the header and Zcash’s difficulty adjustment: the Zcash protocol specification (PDF)
- The 75-second block time: ZIP 208
- The Founders’ Reward: Zcash documentation, basics; the development fund: ZIP 1014
- Monero’s RandomX: Moneropedia, RandomX
- Zecnero: the specification
Questions
Can you mine Zcash on a CPU?
Not competitively. Zcash uses Equihash, and its own mining guide says that at the current difficulty you must use an ASIC. Zecnero keeps Zcash’s shielded transactions and uses RandomX instead, so it is mined on CPUs.
Is Zecnero a Zcash hard fork with ZEC balances?
No. Zecnero forks Zcash’s code, not its chain. It starts from its own genesis block, so no Zcash balance carries over, and it is not affiliated with the Electric Coin Co. or the Zcash Foundation.
Can a Monero miner mine Zecnero?
Not unchanged. Zecnero’s RandomX uses its own Argon2 salt, which gives a different hash function. The miner is xmrig-zecnero, a build of XMRig with the rx/zecnero algorithm.
Has Mainnet launched?
No. The public testnet is live and its coins have no value. Mainnet has not launched.