Zcash Private Transactions Could Get 14 Times Faster

New Cryptographic Library Targets Long-Standing Speed Bottleneck

Zakura, the developer behind a Zcash full node client, has released an open-source library called Zakura Common that compresses shielded transaction creation from over three seconds to under 200 milliseconds. The release directly addresses one of the most persistent friction points for $ZEC users: the cryptographic computation a wallet must complete before a private payment can even be broadcast to the network.

To prove that a hidden transaction still follows the network's rules, the user's wallet has to perform a substantial amount of cryptographic work before the payment can be sent. That calculation is among the reasons a Zcash transaction can feel slow before the network itself has done anything.

Zakura says its new code makes that step more than 14 times faster on mobile devices and more than five times faster on desktop computers. Hashing is more than 21 times faster, and the work nodes do to check private transactions is between four and eight times faster. More specifically, Sinsemilla hashing, a core cryptographic operation used in Zcash's Orchard protocol, saw a 21-fold improvement.

No Network Upgrade Needed, Early Wallets Already On Board

The upgrade does not require a hard fork, a consensus change, or anything that would force the Zcash network to coordinate a synchronized update. Compatible wallets can simply integrate the new library and start serving faster transactions immediately.

The update is already available in Zakura version 1.3.0, and Vizor Wallet has emerged as one of the earliest external wallets to adopt the new library. Other wallets must integrate and test Zakura Common before their users receive the same performance gains. Adoption will therefore depend on individual development schedules rather than a single network activation date.

When Zakura launched in July, its developers laid out a goal of eventually supporting more than 50,000 private transactions per second, roughly the scale of major card networks. The Zakura Common release is a step toward that ambition, though the release does not shorten Zcash block production or settlement on its own. It primarily targets the cryptographic work performed before broadcasting and while checking transactions.

Sean Bowe, Zakura's lead developer and a widely recognized expert in zero-knowledge cryptography, highlighted the improvements, noting that both clients and validators stand to benefit from the enhanced stack.

Sources:
CoinDesk: Zcash Private Transactions Could Go From Three-Second Waits to Under 200 Milliseconds
Crypto.news: Zcash Private Transactions Could Fall Below 200ms
Crypto Briefing: Zcash Private Transactions Set to Drop Wait Times to Under 200 Milliseconds