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Zcash wallets could generate proofs for private transactions in under 200 milliseconds in some cases after Zakura released a new cryptography stack designed to sharply reduce proving times.
Zakura Common, released on August 29, makes mobile proof generation more than 14 times faster and desktop proving more than five times faster, according to project benchmarks. The improvement affects transaction preparation inside a wallet, not blockchain confirmation time.
Mobile Proving Falls From Over Three Seconds to Around 200ms
Shielded Zcash transactions require wallets to generate cryptographic proofs before broadcasting a payment. Zakura said that process can currently take more than three seconds on modern iPhones.
Its benchmarks put proof generation for a standard private transaction below 200 milliseconds in many cases using the optimized libraries. Zcash co-founder and Zakura maintainer Sean Bowe cited roughly 200 milliseconds for a two-input, two-output transaction on an iPhone.
The release also speeds up other cryptographic operations. Sinsemilla hashing runs more than 21 times faster, trial decryption improves by more than 1.5 times and zk-SNARK verification is between four and eight times faster.
Wallets Can Adopt Faster Proving Without a Zcash Network Upgrade
The changes do not alter Zcash consensus rules and do not require a hard fork or coordinated network upgrade.
Zakura released the libraries under MIT and Apache 2.0 open-source licenses, allowing wallet developers to integrate them into software running on the existing network.
Zakura version 1.3.0, released on August 29, already uses the new stack. Project Tachyon is also using Zakura Common.
Sub-200ms Proving Does Not Mean 200ms Zcash Confirmation
The benchmark does not mean Zcash transactions receive blockchain confirmation within 200 milliseconds. Block production and transaction inclusion remain separate from proof generation on the sender’s device.
Zakura is also working on longer-term Zcash scaling improvements, including preparations around the network’s proposed NU7 upgrade.
The faster proving libraries are available now, however, and wallet developers can adopt them independently without waiting for a future Zcash network upgrade.
