Zcash Private Transactions Could Drop From 3 Seconds to Under 200 Milliseconds

Zakura says its new cryptography stack makes proof generation on mobile devices more than 14 times faster, cutting one of the biggest delays users encounter when sending private ZEC.

Zcash privacy blockchain developers have released a new suite of cryptographic tools that they say can cut the time a wallet needs to create a private transaction from more than three seconds to below 200 milliseconds in some cases.

The software, known as Zakura Common, was developed by the team behind Zakura, the new Zcash node launched in July as part of a broader effort to make the privacy-focused blockchain fast enough for everyday payments.

Private Zcash transactions conceal the sender, recipient and amount involved. To show that a hidden payment still complies with the network’s rules, the user’s wallet must handle significant cryptographic processing before the transaction can be sent.

That computation is one reason Zcash transactions can feel sluggish even before the network starts processing them.

But Zakura says its new code speeds up that process by more than 14 times on mobile devices and over five times on desktop computers. Hashing performance is more than 21 times faster, while node processing for verifying private transactions improves by four to eight times.

“Shielded wallets that use Zakura Common, and full nodes like Zakura itself, all benefit,” Zcash cofounder Sean Bowe said in an X post.

The changes do not require an upgrade to the Zcash network itself. Wallet developers can integrate the open-source libraries with the network as it currently operates. Meanwhile, Zakura has already adopted the new stack in version 1.3.0, with Vizor Wallet among the first platforms to implement it.

Zcash Faces Broader Scaling Challenges#

Zcash’s scaling challenge is not simply about how fast the blockchain can produce blocks. When Zakura launched in July, its developers outlined a long-term goal of supporting more than 50,000 private transactions per second, roughly matching the scale of major card networks. They also estimated that current wallet software can handle only about one transaction per second.

Reported at the time that the plan aimed to tackle several bottlenecks simultaneously, ranging from how quickly nodes verify transactions to the amount of data wallets need to download.

However, the new cryptography stack tackles another bottleneck: the time a user’s own device needs to construct a private payment before sending it.

Zakura said wallets should sync more quickly with the new libraries, while full nodes gain from faster transaction verification and fewer orphaned blocks. The team added that its software can already support the 25-second block times proposed for Zcash’s next major upgrade, NU7.

Zakura is led by Bowe, a longtime zero-knowledge cryptography researcher who has worked on Zcash’s proving system since before its launch, alongside Dev Ojha. Its node software operates separately from the Zcash Foundation’s existing implementation. The project serves as an early testing ground for wider scaling efforts, including Project Tachyon, which has also adopted the new stack.

ZEC climbed roughly 5% to around $839 following the release, although the token has slipped on Monday morning as the broader crypto market pulls back.