At a glance
Zecnero is Zcash at network upgrade NU6 with a short, fixed list of changes. The specification (§7) lists every one; this table covers the ones a user, miner or integrator will notice.
| Zecnero | Zcash (NU6) | |
|---|---|---|
| Proof of work | RandomX-Zecnero: RandomX v1 settings, Argon2 salt ZecneroRX + 0x01. CPU-oriented. | Equihash. GPU and ASIC mined. |
| Header | 141 bytes: the Zcash layout with an empty solution field | Carries the Equihash solution |
| Difficulty | aserti3-2d anchored at genesis, 2-hour half-life | Averages 17 blocks with limited adjustment; Testnet minimum-difficulty rule |
| Subsidy | 6.25 ZMR from block 1, halving every 1,680,000 blocks, 30 halvings, 20,999,993.5652 ZMR total | Slow start and the Blossom adjustment (removed in Zecnero) |
| Allocation | Founder stream: 3% of subsidy until the first halving, 1.5% of all ZMR | Founders’ Reward, funding streams and the development fund lockbox (all removed in Zecnero) |
| Timestamps | At most 2,700 s past the median of 11; 900 s into the future | 90 minutes; 2 hours |
| Reorganisation limit | 20 blocks, about 25 minutes | 100 blocks |
| Transactions | Version 5 only | Versions 4 and 5 |
| Shielded pools | Sapling and Orchard; Sprout removed | Sprout, Sapling and Orchard |
| Orchard circuit | The corrected NU6.2 circuit from height 1 | The earlier circuit from NU5 until NU6.2 |
| P2P port | 8733 (Testnet 18733) | 8233 (Testnet 18233) |
| RPC port | 8732 (Testnet 18732) | 8232 (Testnet 18232) |
| Branch ID | 0x01524D5A (“ZMR” + 0x01), network magic 7A 6D 72 D1 | Zcash’s own; differs from every Zecnero value |
| Addresses | N1…, N3…, ns1…, nu1…; Testnet nm…, n2…, ntestsapling1…, nutest1… | t1…, t3…, zs1…, u1… |
| Genesis | Commits to a recent Bitcoin block | — |
What was kept
- All of the shielded cryptography. Sapling and Orchard keys, notes, commitments, nullifiers, note encryption, signatures and proofs are instantiated exactly as in Zcash, down to the
Zcashdomain-separation strings. - The Sapling parameters from Zcash’s multi-party ceremony, unchanged. Orchard’s Halo 2 needs none.
- The node. zecnerod is Zebra with the changes above; everything the specification does not change follows Zcash.
- The shape of issuance: about 21 million coins with a halving about every four years, then fees only.
- Transparent addresses and scripts, which work as in Bitcoin and Zcash.
One consequence of keeping the cryptography: the same spending key produces the same shielded addresses on Zcash and on Zecnero. Use a separate seed, account or coin type for each network, or someone who sees both can link them. (Spec §3.1, §11.)
What was removed
- Sprout, Zcash’s first shielded pool, with its JoinSplits and BCTV14 proofs. A new chain has no Sprout funds to support, and carrying the code adds risk.
- Equihash and Zcash’s difficulty algorithm.
- The Founders’ Reward, funding streams and development fund lockbox. The founder stream replaces them, at 3% instead.
- The slow start: the full subsidy is paid from block 1.
- Transaction versions 1 to 4, and rules that only exist to manage the transition into an upgrade Zecnero activates at height 1.
- Zcash upgrades after NU6, NU6.1 and later, except the two NU6.2 security fixes below.
What is gated for now
Orchard. The node verifies Orchard proofs only under the corrected circuit Zcash introduced at NU6.2, from height 1, and never enables the temporary rule Zcash used to switch Orchard off while that fix was prepared. The transaction-building library that wallets use still picks the older proving key for Zecnero’s branch, so an Orchard spend built with it would be rejected by the network. Until that is fixed, the Zecnero wallet refuses Orchard and unified addresses with a clear error. The fix is on the roadmap before Mainnet.
Mainnet. Not yet launched. The wallet runs on Testnet only.
Spending mined coins on Testnet. On Mainnet, transparent coinbase outputs must be shielded before they are spent. The Testnet node relaxes that so test coins can move directly; the wallet still applies the Mainnet rule by default.
Why these changes
The goal is a launch in which ordinary computers compete on equal terms. RandomX has run Monero since 2019 and was audited before deployment; a private salt separates Zecnero from Monero’s hashrate without touching the audited design. A new chain sees sudden hashrate swings, which ASERT absorbs within hours where Zcash’s averaging window would leave blocks slow for a long time. The tighter timestamp bounds and the 20-block reorganisation limit follow from that choice. The full reasoning is in §9 of the specification.