ZEC Inflation Analysis · October 2026 · Supply growing · projected to keep growing

ZEC supply is growing at a slow, fixed pace. Zcash miners created 161,236 ZEC in the 90 days to Oct 21 2026, nothing was burned or bought back, and the net change came to +0.95%, with the same +0.95% expected for the next 90 days. The pace is set by the protocol: a block reward that halves about every four years, under a hard cap of 21M ZEC.

The verdict, in one paragraph

Over the 90 days from Jul 23 to Oct 21 2026, the Zcash ledger shows 161,236 ZEC of new supply and 0 ZEC removed, a net of +0.95% on a circulating supply of 17.00M ZEC. Other trackers read +1.24% over the same 90 days, a gap of 0.29 percentage points, small enough that we flag no data conflict. The next 90 days project the same +0.95%, because the Nov 5 2026 upgrade changes how often blocks arrive but not how many ZEC are created each day. ZEC is a capped proof-of-work coin with steady, predictable new supply and no burn worth counting yet.

Sell pressure: where new ZEC comes from

Protocol inflation is the only real source of new ZEC. Every Zcash block mints 1.5625 ZEC: 1.25 ZEC to the miner who found it, 0.125 ZEC to the community grants fund and 0.1875 ZEC into a locked protocol fund that coin holders steer. Between Jul 23 and Oct 21 2026 the chain produced 103,191 blocks, a touch slower than one every 75 seconds, so the block reward created 161,236 ZEC, about 1,790 ZEC a day. The total supply on chain rose by the same amount, which tells us no coins were lost or created outside the schedule.

The Nov 5 2026 upgrade, NU7, cuts the time between blocks from 75 seconds to 25 seconds. The same rules divide each block’s reward by three, so Zcash still creates about 1,790 ZEC a day, and the next halving keeps its place on the calendar, around late November 2028, when issuance per day drops by half to roughly 895 ZEC.

Vesting unlocks add 0 ZEC. Zcash never sold tokens to investors, and the founders’ share of block rewards ended in November 2020. No foundation or team allocation waits on a cliff, so the Zcash Foundation and the grants wallets add 0 ZEC of new supply as well: their coins are already counted, and spending them only moves ZEC from one holder to another. There is no bankruptcy estate, court case or government sale holding ZEC, so that row is 0 ZEC too.

Buy pressure: where new ZEC goes

No programmatic buyback exists for ZEC, so that row is 0 ZEC. Until NU7 there is no fee burn either: every transaction fee goes to the miner, and the protocol fee burn row reads 0 ZEC for the last 90 days. From Nov 5 2026 a new rule removes about 60% of each fee from supply. Zcash fees are tiny, well under 1 ZEC a day across the whole network, so this burn takes out only a few dozen ZEC by mid-January 2027, far too little to show in the totals.

No Zcash body buys ZEC, so the foundation buy row is 0 ZEC. Listed companies such as Cypherpunk Technologies, which reported about 323.4K ZEC in August 2026, and the US Zcash funds buy coins that already circulate, which changes who holds ZEC but not how many exist.

The new long-term lock row is also 0 ZEC, with one event to know about. NU7 switches off Sprout, the oldest Zcash private pool, and about 22.3K ZEC still sits there. Owners who do not move it out before Nov 5 2026 will not be able to spend it again. Those coins stay inside the circulating count, so the freeze does not lower the number we track, but in practice it takes about 0.13% of ZEC off the market for good.

Foundation and overhang

Four pools of ZEC sit with Zcash organisations, and all of them are already counted as circulating. The largest is the locked protocol fund, with about 71.2K ZEC, which grows by 0.1875 ZEC every block; no rule lets it pay out yet, and NU7 adds none. Next is a 2-of-3 wallet whose keys sit with three Zcash organisations, holding about 70.9K ZEC; coin holders vote on the grants it pays, and it has paid out about 7.9K ZEC since November 2025, most recently on Oct 16 2026. The Zcash Foundation reported about 85.4K ZEC at the end of March 2026, and the community grants wallet passes its 8% share straight through and keeps under 1K ZEC.

We read the on-chain balances every day and walk the foundation reports by hand about every two weeks. If any of these balances falls between our checks, the outflow goes into the foundation and unscheduled unlocks row at the next check.

How ZEC compares to other capped proof-of-work coins

Zcash copies Bitcoin’s money design: a 21M hard cap, a block reward that halves about every four years, and miners paid in new coins. ZEC started seven years later, so it sits one halving behind: it issues about 0.95% of supply per 90 days, against roughly 0.2% for Bitcoin, and it has about 81% of its cap mined. The big difference is where the reward goes. Bitcoin pays all of it to miners; Zcash sends 20% to development funds, 8% to community grants and 12% into a locked fund that coin holders steer. That adds no extra supply, but it puts two large, known piles of ZEC in the hands of Zcash organisations.

Against Monero, the other big privacy coin, the gap is in the long run. Monero has no cap and pays a small fixed tail reward forever, so its supply never stops growing. Zcash keeps halving toward zero. Litecoin and Bitcoin Cash are closer cousins, with fixed caps and halvings but no development fund and no fee burn. With NU7, Zcash becomes one of the few proof-of-work chains that destroys part of its fees, an idea closer to Ethereum’s fee burn, though at today’s fee levels it is tiny.

What to watch in the next 90 days

Nov 5 2026, at block 3,543,405: NU7 goes live, with 25-second blocks, the 60% fee removal and the end of Sprout. The ZEC created per day should stay the same; if the chain runs faster or slower than planned after the switch, the amount per day moves with it. Watch for a delay if the final node software is not ready in time.

Until Nov 5 2026: how much of the roughly 22.3K ZEC left in Sprout its owners move out before it freezes.

The next coin-holder grants round: any payout from the 70.9K ZEC grants wallet, and any proposal to unlock the 71.2K ZEC protocol fund, would show up in the foundation row.

The debate on the development fund: the current 8% and 12% shares run until the next halving in 2028, and holders are arguing over whether to end them then. A change would not alter total issuance, only who receives it.

Summary

Zcash (ZEC) is a capped proof-of-work coin whose supply grows by about +0.95% every 90 days: miners and development funds received 161,236 ZEC between Jul 23 and Oct 21 2026, and nothing was burned or bought back. The Nov 5 2026 NU7 upgrade triples block speed without changing issuance per day, adds a small fee burn and freezes about 22.3K ZEC in the old Sprout pool. The main risk to the reading is the roughly 141K ZEC held in the locked protocol fund and the grants wallet, which are already counted but could be spent. The ceiling is fixed: 21M ZEC, with the next halving due around late November 2028.

MrNasDog Pressure Framework analysis of ZEC, Metric 1 — Inflation. Data + explanation only. Not financial advice. Checked Oct 21 2026.

Original: https://mrnasdog.com/research/zec/inflation · Data + explanation only. Not financial advice.