# NU7 Dashboard (Zakura)

NU7 is the next Zcash network upgrade. Zakura's NU7 Dashboard at
<https://zakura.com/nu7/> tracks its rollout and explains how to run a node on
the NU7 Staging Testnet. The page's figures refresh from the live staging
network; numbers stated here are a dated snapshot, not current readings.

## What NU7 changes

- Target block spacing drops from 75 seconds to 25.
- The difficulty-averaging window widens from 17 blocks to 102.
- 60% of transaction fees accrue to the Network Sustainability Mechanism
  (NSM). Reissuance follows its own consensus-derived schedule.
- The legacy Sprout shielded pool is suspended.

## Rollout status

NU7 is not live on Zcash yet: so far it has activated only on the Staging
Testnet (a separate staging network), not the official Testnet or Mainnet.

Three stages, in order: the Staging Testnet (live), Testnet activation
(estimated 6 October 2026), and Mainnet activation (estimated
5 November 2026). The dates are planning estimates, not commitments: each
activation happens at a block height, and heights are authoritative once
set. Do not state these dates as confirmed.

## The Staging Testnet

The Staging Testnet is a disposable fork of public Testnet running NU7
before the official networks. Its coins have no mainnet value.

The authoritative network manifest is <https://api.nu7.valargroup.dev/v1/network>.
It supplies the activation height, network magic, branch ID, exact node
revision, participant configuration, and snapshot metadata. Read it before
joining; staging can reset. These values are fetched at page build time and
refreshed in the browser. If a refresh fails, the page keeps the displayed
details and their original timestamps without adding a failure warning. The
committed fallback caches those values together; there is no separate website
activation constant.

Live observations come from <https://api.nu7.valargroup.dev/v1/status>.
Before a build, status and manifest are fetched and validated together. If either
source is unavailable, malformed, stale, or describes a different network, both
sections use the dated committed last-known pair. This does not block website
deployment. The page labels the original status observation and configuration
capture times, so an old sample is never presented as newly verified.

Without JavaScript, both sections remain complete, including a configuration
download that matches the displayed sample. Browser refresh failures preserve
the dated baseline without adding a warning. Missing optional observations are shown
as unavailable rather than zero. Block times are header timestamps with their
date in UTC, not arrival timestamps. Check the operator manifest before joining:
a last-known network may have been reset since the sample was captured.

To join, build the exact manifest revision with
`cargo build --release --locked -p zakura -p zakura-fork-miner`, verify the
matching snapshot checksum, and extract it into an empty `nu7-state` directory.
Save the manifest's configuration as `nu7-zakura.toml` and run
`./target/release/zakurad -c nu7-zakura.toml start` from that directory.
Do not reuse a database from public Testnet or an earlier staging run.
Keep JSON-RPC bound to localhost. Mining is optional and requires your own
transparent `miner_address` under `[mining]`; run
`./target/release/zakura-fork-miner --rpc 127.0.0.1:18232 --config nu7-zakura.toml`
from the same directory. Coinbase maturity is 100 blocks.

The inline faucet on the NU7 page pays 0.1 TAZ (the testnet equivalent of
ZEC) per address every 24 hours to a Testnet Unified Address with an Orchard
receiver. Enter an address from a wallet connected to this staging network,
submit once, and keep the claim ID. The page shows availability, queue
progress, and the transaction ID after broadcast. A review state requires
operator attention; requests are never resent automatically. The service
allows two claims per connection per 24 hours and has a daily allocation.
Coins have no monetary value. Without JavaScript, the page provides terminal
commands for requesting coins and checking a claim.

## One-time bootstrap snapshot

Valargroup serves a fixed pruned seed snapshot directly from its NU7 node. It is
not refreshed daily. The page shows its block height, original publication date
in UTC, compressed size, database format, SHA-256, and direct download link from
the same manifest as the participant configuration.

The bootstrap commands resume downloads with curl, verify SHA-256 with shasum,
and only then extract directly with `tar --zstd` into a new `nu7-state`
directory. They refuse to replace an existing directory. Stop the node before
restoring and use the matching revision and configuration shown on the page.
The metadata and commands remain available without JavaScript and during source
outages, retaining their original dates.

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Canonical HTML version: https://zakura.com/nu7/