- Gemini migrated its Zcash node infrastructure to Zakura, an open-source Zcash full node written in Rust, ahead of Zcash’s NU7 upgrade targeted for November 2026
- NU7 will cut Zcash’s block time from 75 seconds to 25 seconds, meaning nodes must process roughly three times as many blocks in the same period
- Zakura syncs fully in about 4 hours 20 minutes versus nearly 21 hours on Zebra, with pruned snapshots around 12 GB that let new nodes start roughly 680 times faster than a standard peer-to-peer sync
Gemini said in a post published on its official blog on September 29, 2026 that it has migrated its Zcash infrastructure to Zakura, an open-source Zcash full node written in Rust, ahead of the network’s upcoming NU7 upgrade.
NU7 is targeted for activation in November 2026 and will reduce Zcash’s block time from 75 seconds down to 25 seconds. That change means every node on the network, including exchange infrastructure like Gemini’s, will need to process roughly three times as many blocks in the same span of time, putting new demands on sync speed and node reliability that older client software was not built to handle as efficiently.
According to the post, Zakura offers substantial performance gains over Gemini’s previous client, Zebra. A full sync takes approximately 4 hours and 20 minutes on Zakura, compared with nearly 21 hours on Zebra. Zakura’s pruned snapshots run around 12 GB, which the company said lets a node start up roughly 680 times faster than a standard peer-to-peer sync, and cuts recovery time after an outage from hours down to minutes.
Gemini was explicit that the switch is purely an infrastructure change on its end. “Deposits and withdrawals will work exactly as before,” the company wrote, adding that “all improvements are behind the scenes” and customers should not notice any difference in how they interact with their Zcash balances.
The upgrade work reflects a broader push across the Zcash ecosystem to prepare exchanges and wallet providers for faster block times well before NU7 activates on mainnet, so that infrastructure providers are not left scrambling to keep pace once the change goes live. Exchanges that fail to upgrade node software in time risk falling behind the chain’s tip during periods of high transaction volume, which can delay deposit confirmations and withdrawal processing for customers even though the underlying network itself continues operating normally.
Faster block times are part of a broader effort within the Zcash developer community to make the network more competitive with other privacy-focused and general-purpose chains on raw transaction throughput, without weakening the shielded-pool privacy guarantees that distinguish Zcash from most other blockchains. By migrating early and publishing detailed sync-time and snapshot-size figures, Gemini is signaling to the rest of the exchange ecosystem that faster clients like Zakura are already production-ready well ahead of NU7’s November activation, potentially encouraging other venues to make the same switch before block times actually change on mainnet.
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