Zcash developers have released Udon, moving components of Project Tachyon into the Zakura Common library to accelerate private transactions on the network.
Tachyon, Zcash's prior effort to speed up zero-knowledge proofs, is being dismantled and its code refactored into Zakura Common, a shared cryptographic library designed to support faster and more efficient private payments. The shift consolidates work across multiple teams and reduces redundancy in the protocol's development pipeline.
Zcash has pursued performance gains in its privacy layer for three years. Tachyon initially promised to cut proof generation time by orders of magnitude but was shelved when the Zcash community voted in 2024 to pursue a unified scaling roadmap. Zakura Common emerged from that decision as the standardized foundation for all privacy improvements, replacing the scattered approach of separate projects.
Udon itself is not a separate feature but a release that formalizes the migration of Tachyon's proven techniques into Zakura's architecture. Developers say the integration reduces the surface area for bugs and simplifies maintenance by housing all privacy acceleration work in a single, auditable codebase rather than scattered across independent modules.
Zcash has faced criticism from users and exchanges over slow transaction times compared to optional privacy features on competing chains. Monero processes transactions faster but offers no transparent-mode alternative. Zcash's ability to offer both shielded and unshielded transactions has made it a preferred asset on regulated exchanges, but the speed disadvantage of shielded sends has limited adoption of the privacy features.
The Zakura architecture is one of three major initiatives on Zcash's current roadmap. The second is Firewood, a new consensus algorithm designed to increase block throughput. The third is a pending change to the proof system itself, which the community has not yet voted to adopt. Completing all three would allow shielded transactions to compete with unshielded ones on confirmation time.
