Crypto29 September, 20262 min read
Zcash Developers Release Udon, Integrating Project Tachyon Code Into Zakura Common
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Udon released; first Tachyon component integrated into Zakura Common. Zcash targets over 50,000 private transactions per second.
Udon Enters Zakura Common
Zcash developers began moving Project Tachyon code into Zakura Common by releasing Udon, a component that moves parts of the proposed Tachyon scaling upgrade into software used to create and verify private transactions. Project Tachyon leader Sean Bowe said, "On Monday, Udon was released into Zakura Common, a shared cryptography library used by Zakura and other Zcash projects," as the work started as a code migration rather than a network activation. Earlier Common improvements cut private-transaction creation times from more than three seconds to under 200 milliseconds in some tests, while Udon begins the integration but does not demonstrate Tachyon’s speed.
Developers set a long-term target of more than 50,000 private payments a second, and they estimated that current cryptography would make each Zcash node take in more than 500 megabytes of data every second. The developers said Tachyon still requires further development and a security review before possible activation, and they described Zcash as a long way from that volume as of Tuesday.
What the Migration Changes
Zcash developers framed Udon as the first component of a proposed scaling upgrade released into a shared cryptographic library, and they said users would not see faster shielded transactions immediately. A Zcash wallet must prove that a private payment is valid without revealing who paid whom or how much, and computers running the network then check that proof. The developers said earlier Common work reduced the time needed to create one from over three seconds to under 200 milliseconds in some tests, while Tachyon aims to limit the network’s workload as usage grows.
Project Tachyon’s technical design targets the state burden that accumulates after private payments are accepted, because validators track unique values called nullifiers. The developers also said Tachyon remains a proposed upgrade that would require community approval rather than a developer team simply shipping a wallet update.
Targets, Benchmarks, and Risks
Project Tachyon developers said the integration focuses on cryptographic performance work, and they reported benchmark results showing mobile proof generation improving by more than 14 times and desktop proof generation by more than five times. tokenpost said Sinsemilla hashing was more than 21 times faster, trial decryption was more than 1.5 times faster, and zk-SNARK verification improved by four to eight times. tokenpost reported that wallet transaction creation that previously took more than three seconds could take less than 200 milliseconds in many cases, while also warning that these improvements concern the underlying software stack and do not represent a completed Zcash protocol upgrade.
tokenpost said Zakura’s long-term design goal is to support more than 50,000 transactions per second, and it estimated that at that volume current Zcash cryptography would require more than 500 megabytes per second of node throughput. tokenpost added that Tachyon could reduce the requirement to 100 megabytes per second, while the work remained ongoing and Udon was described as the first step toward incorporating recursive proofs into Zakura Common.