ZIP: 254
Title: Deployment of the NU7 Network Upgrade
Owners: Arya <arya@zfnd.org>
Status: Draft
Category: Consensus / Network
Created: 2024-10-31
License: MIT
Discussions-To: <https://github.com/zcash/zips/issues/839>

Terminology

The key word “MUST” in this document is to be interpreted as described in BCP 14 ¹ when, and only when, it appears in all capitals.

The term “network upgrade” in this document is to be interpreted as described in ZIP 200. ²

The character § is used when referring to sections of the Zcash Protocol Specification. ³

The terms “Mainnet” and “Testnet” are to be interpreted as described in § 3.12 ‘Mainnet and Testnet’. ⁴

Abstract

This proposal defines the deployment of the NU7 network upgrade.

Specification

NU7 deployment

The primary sources of information about NU7 consensus protocol changes are:

• The Zcash Protocol Specification ³.
• ZIP 200: Network Upgrade Mechanism ².

The network handshake and peer management mechanisms defined in ZIP 201 ⁵ also apply to this upgrade.

The following network upgrade constants ² are defined for the NU7 upgrade:

CONSENSUS_BRANCH_ID

0x77190AD8

ACTIVATION_HEIGHT (NU7)

Testnet: TBD

Mainnet: TBD

MIN_NETWORK_PROTOCOL_VERSION (NU7)

Testnet: 170130

Mainnet: 170140

For each network (Testnet and Mainnet), nodes compatible with NU7 activation on that network MUST advertise a network protocol version that is greater than or equal to the MIN_NETWORK_PROTOCOL_VERSION (NU7) for that activation.

Backward compatibility

Prior to the network upgrade activating on each network, NU7 and pre-NU7 nodes are compatible and can connect to each other. However, NU7 nodes will have a preference for connecting to other NU7 nodes, so pre-NU7 nodes will gradually be disconnected in the run up to activation.

Once the network upgrades, even though pre-NU7 nodes can still accept the numerically larger protocol version used by NU7 as being valid, NU7 nodes will always disconnect peers using lower protocol versions.

References