Zcash private transactions could go from three-second waits to under 200 milliseconds
The Zcash development team has released a new software stack called Zakura Common, designed to significantly speed up private transaction processing on mobile and desktop devices. By optimizing cryptographic calculations, the update aims to make privacy-focused transactions practical for everyday use.
Why it matters
Improving transaction speed is a major hurdle for privacy-centric blockchains attempting to compete with mainstream payment networks.
The software, called Zakura Common , comes from the team behind Zakura, the new Zcash node launched in July as part of a broader push to make the privacy-focused blockchain fast enough for everyday payments.
Private Zcash transactions hide the sender, receiver and amount being transferred. To prove that such 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 even be sent.
That calculation is among the reasons a Zcash transaction can feel slow before the network itself has done anything.
But 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.
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