Zcash is getting a significant performance upgrade on the wallet side, with Zakura introducing a new cryptography toolkit that could reduce private transaction creation times from several seconds to less than 200 milliseconds in some cases.

The open-source toolkit, called Zakura Common, is designed to speed up the calculations required to generate shielded ZEC transactions. Zakura said proof generation on mobile devices is now more than 14 times faster, while desktop transaction creation has improved by more than five times.

Shielded transactions allow Zcash users to keep the sender, recipient and payment amount private. Before these transactions can be broadcast, however, wallets must perform extensive cryptographic computations to demonstrate that the hidden payment complies with the blockchain’s rules.

That process occurs locally on the user’s device and can cause a noticeable delay before the transaction even reaches the network.

According to Zakura, the new software can reduce transaction-generation time from more than three seconds to below 200 milliseconds under certain conditions. The team also reported more than 21 times faster Sinsemilla hashing, a trial-decryption improvement of more than 1.5 times and zk-SNARK verification that is four to eight times faster.

Zcash co-founder Sean Bowe said the improvements extend to both shielded wallets that integrate Zakura Common and full nodes running Zakura software.

Faster Private Payments Without a Protocol Upgrade

Zakura Common does not require a Zcash consensus change or network-wide upgrade. Wallet developers can use the open-source libraries with the existing Zcash network.

Zakura has already adopted the new cryptographic stack in its 1.3.0 node release, while Vizor Wallet is among the first projects to integrate the technology.

The release addresses one of several bottlenecks that Zcash developers are working to overcome. Network scaling depends not only on block times but also on transaction verification, wallet synchronization, blockchain data requirements and the computational effort needed to generate privacy proofs.

Zakura has previously outlined a long-term objective of processing more than 50,000 private transactions per second, placing its target around the level of major card networks. The project has contrasted that goal with current wallet software, which it estimates can handle roughly one transaction per second.

By speeding up cryptographic processing on users’ devices, Zakura Common tackles the delay that occurs before a shielded payment is submitted to the blockchain.

Zakura also expects the libraries to improve wallet synchronization. Full nodes could see faster transaction verification and fewer orphaned blocks, while the team said its implementation can already support the 25-second block interval proposed for NU7, Zcash’s next major upgrade.

Zakura Pushes Broader Zcash Scaling Effort

Zakura is an independent Zcash node implementation led by co-founder Sean Bowe and developed alongside Dev Ojha. Its software is separate from the node implementation maintained by the Zcash Foundation.

The project is being used to test broader performance improvements, with Project Tachyon also moving to the new technology stack.

ZEC gained about 5% after the release, reaching close to $839, before retreating as the wider crypto market came under pressure on Monday.