Zcash Private Payments Are Getting 14x Faster: What Will Users Notice?

• ZEC proof generation is now more than 14x faster on mobile devices and 5x on desktop.
• Private transaction times reportedly dropped from over 3s to under 200ms in some cases.
• Everyday adoption still depends on merchant acceptance and easy exchange transfers.

Zcash got a huge speed upgrade for private transactions. The Zakura Common team claims proof generation is more than 14 times faster on mobile devices and 5 times on desktop, with hashing 21 times quicker, trial decryption 1.5 times faster, and verification roughly 4 to 8 times faster.

This means that parts of the wallet experience could feel a lot faster, but the blockchain itself isn’t suddenly 14 times quicker.

Creating a Private Transaction May Become Much Quicker

The biggest speed-up seems to be in proof generation. Privacy-focused Zcash transactions involve complex math to verify a transaction without exposing information such as who sent it or received it. 

That kind of work can be heavy, especially on phones.

Reports say the new library may cut private transaction creation time from more than three seconds to under 200 milliseconds in some cases, which is the kind of speed boost users will notice when they hit send on a shielded wallet.

However, it’s important to note that the block confirmation doesn’t become 14 times faster.

The upgrade makes the cryptography faster, but it doesn’t change how quickly Zcash blocks are produced. Meaning, even after the user creates and sends a transaction, they still have to wait for the network’s normal block confirmation process.

Does This Make Private ZEC Practical for Everyday Mobile Payments?

This development could make private ZEC viable for everyday mobile payments, but it isn’t a complete fix on its own.

Cutting cryptographic processing from seconds down to a fraction of a second could get rid of one of the biggest annoyances with private mobile payments. Zcash has already seen more shielded activity, with cumulative shielded transactions across major protocols hitting over 3.29 million earlier this month.

If a customer is buying something in a shop, a wallet that handles private payments almost instantly is notably more practical than one that makes them stand around waiting.

Nonetheless, everyday adoption still depends on other factors, such as whether merchants accept it and whether users can easily move between exchanges and privacy-enabled wallets.

Zakura also said new versions of its software and wallets using Zakura Common may take advantage of the speed boost right away. So, users won’t necessarily need a new wallet, though that still depends on their wallet provider adding the new libraries.

Related: Zcash vs Bitcoin: Grayscale Sees Room for ZEC to Gain Market Share