Zcash Hash Rate Rises Over 13 Percent in One Day Ahead of Sapling Launch

Privacy cryptocurrency Zcash received a hash rate boost on Sept. 30 with a 13 percent rise ahead of its much-awaited Sapling protocol upgrade.

A network's hash rate has historically indicated rising miner interest in a particular coin.

More mining groups join a coin's network ahead of a significant upgrade, fork, or other technology development, resulting in heightened network security and increased asset prices.

For the uninitiated, a network's hash rate displays the amount of computing power governing a cryptocurrency network at any instant.

As blockchain systems are fundamentally decentralized, network security depends on the number of computers validating nodes, solving complex cryptographic problems, and protecting the network to earn the prized "Block reward." The larger network's hash rate, the more secure the system.

Now, with the Sapling protocol upcoming, the robust Zcash protocol has received a security boost, but not a significant increase in ZEC prices yet.

Hash rates for the network rose 13 percent within 24 hours on Sept. 30.$ZEC hashrate up a massive 13% today.

Sapling aims to introduce code improvements for increasing transactional efficiency for "Shielded" transactions that promote the growth of exchange, vendor, and mobile outlets for ZEC payments.

With renewed interest in the Zcash protocol, it remains to be seen if investor interest increases in the coming few days.

The price and hash rate moves may not be immediate either; Sapling does not go live until Oct. 29 on activation block 419200, assuming a block time of 150 seconds/block.