Zcash has released Zakura version 1.0.0, a new full node designed to push the boundaries of the network’s capabilities. The software was developed by Sean Bowe, one of the pioneers of Zcash’s zero-knowledge cryptography, alongside Dev Ojha, former co-founder of Osmosis who now leads Valar Group. Their goal is clear: to exceed a processing capacity of 50,000 transactions per second to rival the operating scale of global payment networks like Visa and Mastercard. Notably, developers emphasized that this throughput figure serves as a baseline rather than a final target.
Zcash’s current cryptography requires transfer speeds of over 500 megabytes per second to achieve such high volumes. That stream of data is equivalent to burning a full DVD every 10 seconds non-stop. To alleviate this burden, Bowe is developing recursive proofs technology through Project Tachyon. This innovation simplifies the validation process by allowing a single mathematical proof to verify thousands of other transactions at once, significantly reducing the network’s consensus data load. At the same time, Valar Group is developing a private information retrieval feature, ensuring user wallets can fetch data from servers without leaking query history to third parties.
Full Synchronization in Under Two Minutes
Zakura was created as a complete codebase overhaul of Zebra, the Zcash Foundation’s official node software. This new version introduces an automatic pruning feature that discards old blockchain data when it is no longer needed, slashing node operators’ storage requirements to just 11 gigabytes. Thanks to its built-in ready-to-use snapshot, bootstrapping a node from scratch takes less than two minutes - claimed to be 680 times faster than standard software.
This transition coincides with the deprecation of zcashd. Zcash’s original network client reached its end of life on July 18, 2026. To prevent ecosystem disruptions, Zakura includes a compatibility mode that exactly replicates the legacy client’s interface, keeping wallet and exchange operations running smoothly. This update is designed to support Ironwood (NU6.3), a mainnet upgrade scheduled to go live at block 3,428,143 around July 28, 2026.
Why Is Ironwood Urgently Needed?
Beyond throughput improvements, Zcash recently survived a potentially fatal internal threat. On May 29, 2026, Taylor Hornby of Shielded Labs uncovered a bug within the proving system circuit for Orchard, Zcash’s latest privacy pool. This vulnerability opened up the risk of malicious actors minting counterfeit ZEC coins without leaving any on-chain transaction footprint. The situation was further compounded because the vulnerability had existed since Orchard’s launch in May 2022, leaving it exposed on the network for four full years.
The developer team responded swiftly by shutting down Orchard on June 2, before reactivating it the next day with circuit fixes via the NU6.2 hard fork upgrade at block 3,364,600. The Ironwood upgrade introduced by Zakura is tasked with fully mitigating the remaining fallout from the crisis. The system implements a dedicated rate limiter at the pool‘s boundary to regulate incoming and outgoing asset flows, trapping any counterfeit coins minted in the past inside and preventing them from circulating in the open market.
Reported by CoinDesk.
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Disclaimer: This article is for informational and educational purposes only, not financial advice. Cryptocurrency assets are highly volatile and carry significant risk. Always do your own research (DYOR) and never invest more than you can afford to lose.
