The Zcash lockbox is a reserve that the protocol keeps by itself. Since November 2024, 12% of every block reward goes into it instead of to anyone's address. On October 14, 2026 it held 69,684.375 ZEC, and nobody can spend that today: the rules that would release it have not been written yet.
Snapshot, October 14, 2026
Lockbox balance at block 3,518,049: 69,684.375 ZEC, from our daily Shielded Supply tracker, which reads
every value pool from the blockchain. The balance adds 0.1875 ZEC per block. The daily history is in the tracker's CSV
export, listed on our open data page (column lockbox_zec).
What the lockbox is
ZIP 2001 created a new kind of funding stream whose share of the block reward is "deposited directly into the deferred funding pool instead of being sent to a recipient address." Full nodes track that pool as its own balance, next to the transparent pool and the Sprout, Sapling, Orchard and Ironwood shielded pools.
ZIP 1015 gives it the name everyone uses: "The 'lockbox' is a separate pool of issued funds tracked by the protocol". Three properties follow from that:
- No address, no key. There is nothing to hack and nobody to sign for it. The balance can only change through consensus rules.
- Issued supply. ZIP 2001 counts the deferred pool in the issued supply, so lockbox coins are part of the total supply even though they sit in no wallet.
- Not shielded. Our shielded supply figures never count the lockbox as shielded.
Why a lockbox instead of paying organizations directly
The previous development fund, ZIP 1014, paid 20% of every block reward straight to organizations: Electric Coin Company, the Zcash Foundation and a major grants fund. When it ended at the second halving, ZIP 1015 replaced it with 8% for Zcash Community Grants and 12% for the lockbox.
ZIP 1015 lists its reasons as "Regulatory Risks", "Funding Inefficiencies" and "Centralization Concerns", and states the goal plainly: "Allocating funds to a Deferred Dev Fund Lockbox incentivizes the development of a decentralized mechanism for the disbursement of the locked funds." The money is collected now and released later, once the community has agreed on a way to release it that does not depend on one organization.
The four phases
| Phase | Blocks (Mainnet) | What happened | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dev Fund | 1,046,400 to 2,726,399 | 20% paid directly to organizations, no lockbox | ZIP 1014 (Active) |
| Lockbox starts (NU6) | from 2,726,400 | 12% into the lockbox, 8% to Zcash Community Grants | ZIP 1015, ZIP 2001 (Final) |
| One-time disbursement (NU6.1) | block 3,146,400 | 78,750 ZEC moved to a 2-of-3 multisig; the 12% stream continues | ZIP 271, ZIP 1016 (Proposed, deployed by NU6.1) |
| Today | after 3,146,400 | 12% keeps accruing, no way to spend it | ZIP 271 |
NU6 activated at block 2,726,400 on November 23, 2024. From then until block 3,146,400 the lockbox received 0.1875 ZEC per block, 12% of the 1.5625 ZEC subsidy. That is 420,000 blocks × 0.1875 ZEC = 78,750 ZEC, exactly the amount that ZIP 271 then moved out.
ZIP 271's rule is precise: the coinbase transaction of the NU6.1 activation block "MUST include one or more lockbox disbursement output(s) to a 2-of-3 P2SH multisig" whose keys are held by the Zcash Foundation, the Electric Coin Company and Shielded Labs. That multisig funds the grants coinholders vote on. How those votes, thresholds and vetoes work is covered in our guide to Zcash coinholder voting.
Two different pots
The multisig received the one-time 78,750 ZEC and pays coinholder-approved grants. The lockbox is the protocol pool that kept filling up afterwards. Coinholder votes can direct the first; nothing can move the second until a network upgrade adds a rule for it.
How the balance grows
After the one-time disbursement, the lockbox started again from almost zero. Because every block adds exactly 0.1875 ZEC, its balance is predictable to the last digit:
balance = (block height − 3,146,400 + 1) × 0.1875 ZEC
This holds for blocks after NU6.1 under today's rules. We checked it against every turning point in our daily data:
| Date (UTC) | Block | Lockbox (ZEC) | What it shows |
|---|---|---|---|
| November 22, 2024 | 2,725,869 | 0 | Before NU6 |
| November 23, 2024 | 2,727,001 | 112.875 | First day of the lockbox |
| November 23, 2025 | 3,145,447 | 78,571.5 | Last day before NU6.1 |
| November 24, 2025 | 3,146,589 | 35.625 | After the 78,750 ZEC disbursement |
| October 14, 2026 | 3,518,049 | 69,684.375 | Latest snapshot |
ZIP 271 calls the continuing 12% stream FS_CCF_H3. Under today's 75-second blocks it runs up to the
third halving at block 4,406,400, which would add 1,260,000 × 0.1875 = 236,250 ZEC (our arithmetic, not a
figure from the ZIPs).
The planned NU7 upgrade would change block timing, and a draft revision of ZIP 214 adjusts the stream's end height for that. The NU7 deployment ZIP says its Mainnet activation height is to be set on October 20, 2026, so we will update this section once that is confirmed rather than quote draft numbers now. The NU7 explainer covers the proposal itself.
Who can spend it
Nobody can today. ZIP 1015 said at the start: "No disbursement mechanism is currently defined for this 'lockbox'; the Zcash community will need to decide upon and specify a suitable decentralized mechanism for permitting withdrawals from this lockbox in a future ZIP." ZIP 271 repeats that after its one-time transfer, funds "will continue to securely accrue to the Deferred Development Lockbox until a disbursement mechanism for the lockbox is implemented in a future network upgrade."
The consensus rules also protect the pool from the other side: since NU6, a block that would make the lockbox balance negative is invalid (ZIP 256).
As of October 15, 2026 we found no ZIP, not even a draft, that defines an ongoing disbursement mechanism, and the NU7 deployment ZIP does not add one. Any withdrawal would need such a ZIP, node software that implements it, and a network upgrade that activates it. The governance guide explains how that process works.
What your node shows
Zebra reports the lockbox in getblockchaininfo and getblock as a value pool with the id lockbox. Its chainValue is
everything paid in minus the one ZIP 271 disbursement. Zebra's RPC changelog for version 2.0.0 (August 7, 2025) notes that
the identifier was renamed from deferred to lockbox, so older tools may still use the old name. A monitored flag on the
pool only tells you whether the balance is non-zero; it says nothing about ownership or security.
The status of the ZIPs
| ZIP | Topic | Status (read October 15, 2026) |
|---|---|---|
| ZIP 1014 | Previous Dev Fund | Active |
| ZIP 1015 | 8% ZCG and 12% lockbox | Final |
| ZIP 2001 | Lockbox funding streams | Final |
| ZIP 271 | One-time disbursement and extension | Proposed |
| ZIP 1016 | Community and Coinholder Funding Model | Proposed |
| ZIP 255 | Deployment of NU6.1 | Final |
ZIP 271 and ZIP 1016 still carry the status Proposed although the NU6.1 deployment ZIP (Final) lists them and NU6.1 is live; the zcashd 6.10.0 release notes describe ZIP 1016 as deployed "partially". We report both facts without interpreting them.
Sources
ZIP texts were read on October 15, 2026 from the Zcash ZIPs repository: ZIP 1014, ZIP 1015, ZIP 2001, ZIP 214, ZIP 255, ZIP 256, ZIP 271 and ZIP 1016. The RPC details come from the Zebra RPC changelog. Balances are our own Shielded Supply snapshots; the formula above reproduces every one of them. Related: the lockbox glossary entry and how many Zcash there are.