Zakura (@ZakuraZcash) has launched P2Pv2, an experimental networking layer designed to improve block propagation on Zcash (@Zcash) $ZEC. The upgrade is aimed at one of the main constraints on
Zakura (@ZakuraZcash) has launched P2Pv2, an experimental networking layer designed to improve block propagation on Zcash (@Zcash) $ZEC. The upgrade is aimed at one of the main constraints on scaling the privacy-focused network: how quickly full nodes can exchange block data.
P2Pv2 runs alongside the existing peer-to-peer network layer. Testnet and Regtest now run in dual-stack mode by default, while Mainnet remains on the legacy stack. Mainnet support is planned for a later stage.
The new layer is intended to replace the old protocol inherited from Bitcoin.It swaps a protocol stack from about a decade ago for protocols that can be tuned for latency, throughput or robustness, letting one secure connection carry several independent services.The transport layer uses a custom zakura-quic component built on quinn-proto, using QUIC and TLS 1.3 and authenticating peers with Ed25519 node identities.
The design also adds more control over resources. Nodes can configure socket buffers, flow control windows, timers and connection admission before the TLS handshake.
The longer-term goal is to help Zcash scale toward 50,000 transactions per second. Zakura states that this would require each full node to continuously receive about 100 MB/s of block data, while NU7's 25-second blocks can carry a maximum of 2 MB, a gap of more than a thousand times.
Zakura is a full node implementation that launched earlier this year. It is co-led by Valar Group and Project Tachyon, and its roadmap to roughly 50,000 private transactions per second is phased across the node itself, Tachyon's recursive proofs and wallet-side private information retrieval.At launch, Valar Group's Dev Ojha estimated shielded capacity at about 2.92 TPS on 75-second blocks and put the 50,000 TPS goal two to three years out.
The upgrade is still early. The project's repository says the v2 stack is off by default on Mainnet, has known denial-of-service risks and is not yet production-hardened.Its stated goals include sub-500ms worst-case block propagation and sync at the speed of available bandwidth.
For now, the testing phase on Testnet will show whether the new networking layer can deliver on those goals before any move to Mainnet.
Sources
ChainCatcher: Zakura releases experimental P2Pv2Zakura Core GitHub repositoryTechFlow: Zcash Q3 Report on Zakura
