ZEC Inflation Analysis · September 2026 · Supply growing, projected to keep growing

ZEC, the native coin of the Zcash proof-of-work chain, grows its supply every block: the Zcash block reward issues 1.5625 ZEC per block, and the chain produced 103,195 blocks over the last 90 days, so 161,242 ZEC was issued. Zcash has no fee burn and no buyback, but consensus sends 12% of every block into a development-fund lockbox that has no keys, which locked 19,349 ZEC across the window. That leaves the MrNasdog Pressure Framework reading ZEC at +0.84% net over the last 90 days against a supply-monitor reading of +0.96% — a gap of 0.12 percentage points, which is agreement, not conflict. ZEC supply keeps rising toward a 21M hard cap, and the next Zcash halving is not due until Nov 2028.

The verdict, in one paragraph

For the 90-day window ending Sep 13 2026, the Pressure Framework reads ZEC at +0.84% net: the sell side issued 161,242 ZEC through the Zcash block reward, and the buy side removed 19,349 ZEC of it into the lockbox, leaving 141,893 ZEC of new supply that reached the market. The independent supply monitor reads the realised 90-day change at +0.96%. The gap is 0.12 percentage points, well inside the framework's half-point tolerance, so ZEC ships with no data-conflict flag. The forward column also reads +0.84%, because the Zcash block reward, the block pace and the 12% lockbox share all stay the same until the next halving, and no network upgrade has an activation height inside the next 90 days. The label for ZEC is capped proof-of-work issuance with a locked development slice: a mined coin whose supply rises by a fixed amount per block, a little of which the protocol holds back.

Sell pressure: where new ZEC comes from

All new ZEC comes from mining. Sell #1, protocol inflation, is 161,242 ZEC. Since the second Zcash halving in Nov 2024 the block subsidy has been 1.5625 ZEC, split by consensus into 1.25 ZEC for the miner, 0.125 ZEC for the Zcash Community Grants stream and 0.1875 ZEC for the lockbox. All three slices are newly created ZEC, so the whole subsidy is booked as issuance. The block count was measured rather than assumed: Zcash targets one block every 75 seconds, but the chain actually ran at 75.35 seconds, producing 103,195 blocks instead of the 103,680 the target implies. Because the Zcash subsidy is paid per block and nothing in the protocol rescales it when blocks run slow, the measured count is the right one — using the target would have over-stated ZEC issuance by about 758 ZEC. The Zcash node's own supply meter closes the arithmetic exactly: it rose by 161,242.1875 ZEC between the two ends of the window, which is 103,195 blocks times 1.5625 to the last unit.

Sell #2, vesting unlocks, is zero. Zcash launched by mining in 2016 with no token sale to vest; the founders' share of the block reward ended at the first halving in Nov 2020, and the company and foundation funding streams ended at the second in Nov 2024. Sell #3, foundation and unscheduled unlocks, is zero this window, for reasons covered in the overhang section below. Sell #4, long-term locked or bankruptcy supply, is zero: no bankruptcy estate or trustee distributes ZEC, and no long-dated ZEC lock is unwinding. The sealed Orchard pool still holding 417,544 ZEC is not such a lock — those are ordinary owners' coins that were always inside the Zcash float, and moving them out adds no new supply.

Buy pressure: where new ZEC goes

Only one mechanism takes ZEC off the market, and it is built into Zcash consensus. Buy #4, new long-term lock, is 19,349 ZEC: the 12% lockbox share of every block is sent to a protocol value pool with no keys and no spending path. The Zcash lockbox balance was read from node state at both ends of the window — 43,563 ZEC at the start and 62,912 ZEC at the end — and the rise equals exactly 103,195 blocks times 0.1875 ZEC, so nothing was disbursed from it in the window. The lockbox only opens through a network upgrade; the last release was a one-time 78,750 ZEC on Nov 24 2025, when the NU6.1 upgrade moved the earlier balance to a grant multisig. Because the lockbox ZEC is created and locked in the same block, it appears in Sell #1 as issuance and again in Buy #4 as a lock, which leaves the net figure unchanged.

Buy #1, programmatic buyback, is zero: Zcash collects no protocol revenue and runs no buyback. Buy #2, protocol fee burn, is zero, and both burn surfaces agree. Zcash transaction fees are paid to the miner rather than destroyed, and the Zcash supply meter rose by exactly the block subsidy — any fee burn would have left it short. Zcash also has no burn address convention to watch. A mechanism to take part of every fee out of circulation has been proposed for years but is not part of Zcash consensus today. Buy #3, foundation buying, is zero: no foundation or treasury buys ZEC on the market. The Ironwood network upgrade on Jul 28 2026 sealed the old Orchard pool to withdrawals and opened a new private Ironwood pool, which now holds 3,944,329 ZEC. That is ZEC moving between pools, not ZEC leaving the float, so it lands in no row — and the Zcash block reward and lockbox share read identical on both sides of the upgrade block.

Foundation and overhang

Three balances linked to the Zcash ecosystem are tracked. The largest is the lockbox itself at 62,912 ZEC, growing by 0.1875 ZEC a block and readable from any Zcash node; it cannot move until a network upgrade adds a way to spend it. Next is the grant multisig that received the 78,750 ZEC lockbox release, held jointly by three ecosystem organisations and now at 78,183 ZEC; it has made only a handful of payments since Nov 2025 and has not moved since Apr 14 2026, so it released nothing in the window. Third is the Zcash Foundation's own treasury, which has no published address: its Q2 report put it at 78,986 ZEC on Jun 30 2026, down from 85,412 ZEC in March, while its dollar-stablecoin balance rose — a conversion of ZEC to dollars inside the April-to-June quarter. That swap has no date inside this window and no published schedule, so it is not booked; even the full quarter's 6,426 ZEC would add only about 0.04 percentage points and would not change the band. The Zcash Community Grants stream is watched too, but it passes coins straight through and is already counted in Sell #1. Company treasuries that bought ZEC on the market, the Zcash ETF, and exchange wallets are not team holdings and are excluded. If the lockbox, the grant multisig or the Foundation's balance falls between refreshes, the outflow enters Sell #3 at the next refresh.

How ZEC compares to other privacy and proof-of-work coins

ZEC shares its monetary skeleton with Bitcoin: a 21M hard cap, a fixed reward per block, and a halving every four years on block height. About 80.6% of all ZEC that will ever exist has now been mined. The structural difference is where the reward goes. Bitcoin pays its whole subsidy to miners; Zcash diverts 20% of each block to development — 8% to a grants stream and 12% to the lockbox — so a slice of ZEC issuance is either spent on grants or held back by consensus rather than sold by miners to cover costs. That lockbox is the one thing that makes the ZEC buy side non-zero, and it has no Bitcoin equivalent.

Against Monero, the other large privacy coin, the contrast runs the other way. Monero has no supply cap and pays a permanent tail emission of 0.6 XMR per block forever, so its issuance never ends; ZEC issuance falls by half every four years and stops at the cap. Privacy is optional on Zcash and compulsory on Monero, but that is a usage difference, not a supply one: neither chain burns fees, and neither runs a buyback. Against uncapped proof-of-stake chains, which mint staking rewards on a percentage of supply and rely on a fee burn to offset them, ZEC has neither the percentage-based mint nor the burn — its new supply is a fixed amount per block. The Zcash fee economy is small: about 75 ZEC of fees over the last 30 days, near $1.0M a year against a market value around $18.6B, or roughly 0.005%. Almost all of what miners earn is the block subsidy, which is why ZEC supply growth is set by the halving schedule, not by how busy the chain is.

What to watch in the next 90 days

First, the NU7 coinholder vote closes on Sep 14 2026. It asks whether to replace Zcash halvings with a smoother issuance curve, when recycled fees should be reissued (no earlier than Feb 2027), whether to cut the block time from 75 to 25 seconds with the per-block reward cut in proportion so issuance per day stays the same, and when to retire the old Sprout pool. Second, the NU7 readiness deadline of Sep 30 2026: no Zcash node release sets an NU7 activation height yet, and until one does, no forward row changes. Third, the lockbox should reach about 82,261 ZEC by Dec 12 2026; any lower reading means a disbursement path was switched on. Fourth, the grant multisig at 78,183 ZEC and the next quarterly coinholder grant round — any payment out of it opens Sell #3. Fifth, the Zcash Foundation's Q3 report, which will show whether its ZEC-to-dollar conversions continued.

Summary

The MrNasdog Pressure Framework reads ZEC at +0.84% net over the trailing 90 days and +0.84% over the next 90. The structural mechanism is a capped proof-of-work coin that issues 1.5625 ZEC per block — 161,242 ZEC over the window — while Zcash consensus locks 12% of it, 19,349 ZEC, in a keyless lockbox. The key risk is governance: the NU7 vote can reshape the Zcash issuance curve, and a future upgrade can open the lockbox, turning a buy-side lock into new sell pressure. The ceiling is the 21M ZEC cap; with about 80.6% already mined and the next halving due in Nov 2028, ZEC supply growth slows in steps rather than stopping soon.

MrNasdog Pressure Framework analysis of ZEC, Metric 1 — Inflation. Data + explanation only. Not financial advice. Updated Sep 13 2026.