Inside Zcash's new node that targets Visa-scale privacy at 50,000 transactions per second
Zcash has released a new full node software called Zakura, which aims to match Visa and Mastercard's transaction speed of 50,000 per second while preserving privacy guarantees. Zakura is a fork of Zebra and supports the Ironwood upgrade, which introduces a turnstile mecha…
Intelligence analysis by Llama
Zcash's new node software, Zakura, targets Visa-scale privacy at 50,000 transactions per second. It is a fork of Zebra and supports the Ironwood upgrade, which introduces a turnstile mechanism to cap withdrawals from the Orchard shielded pool.
Imagine you're at a big concert and everyone wants to get in. The current Zcash system is like a slow-moving line where each person has to show their ticket and prove who they are. Zakura is like a new, faster way to get everyone in quickly while still keeping everyone's identity private.
Analysis
A $60B Vote of Confidence
Zcash's new node software, Zakura, is a significant development in the cryptocurrency space. With its ability to match Visa and Mastercard's transaction speed of 50,000 per second, Zakura has the potential to make Zcash a more viable option for high-volume transactions. This is a major vote of confidence in the Zcash network and its ability to scale.
Why Cursor?
Zakura is a fork of Zebra, the Zcash Foundation's node software. It is designed to be a pruned, fast-syncing fork of Zebra with compatibility for the legacy zcashd client. This means that Zakura can delete old blockchain data that a node no longer needs, which shrinks the chain enough that the team publishes ready-made copies of it. This makes it much faster for new nodes to download and start running.
The Road Ahead
The reason for building all this is arithmetic. Mastercard and Visa process more than 50,000 transactions per second, and the team calls that figure '“its floor, not its target.” Zcash's current cryptography would require a node to take in and verify more than 500 megabytes of data every second to keep up. But the missing piece is the reason each bottleneck exists. Bowe's Project Tachyon is tackling this by working on recursive proofs, in which one proof attests to the validity of thousands of others, dramatically reducing the amount of data that must be checked at consensus.
Key points
- Zcash has released a new full node software called Zakura, which aims to match Visa and Mastercard's transaction speed of 50,000 per second while preserving privacy guarantees.
- Zakura is a fork of Zebra and supports the Ironwood upgrade, which introduces a turnstile mechanism to cap withdrawals from the Orchard shielded pool.
- Project Tachyon is working on recursive proofs to reduce the amount of data that must be checked at consensus.
- Valar Group is working on private information retrieval techniques to remove wallet bottlenecks.
If Zakura is successful, it could lead to a significant increase in the adoption of Zcash, making it a more viable option for high-volume transactions. This could also lead to a decrease in the cost of transactions, making it more accessible to a wider range of users.
However, there are still significant technical challenges to overcome before Zakura can reach its full potential. If these challenges are not addressed, it could lead to a decrease in the adoption of Zcash and a decrease in its value.
