Zcash developers begin moving Tachyon code into faster private-payment software

The developers behind privacy-focused Zcash are moving part of their proposed scaling upgrade into software already used across the network, preparing for a future with far more private transactions.

That piece is Udon, a new component first developed as part of Project Tachyon, Zcash’s proposed scaling upgrade.

On Monday, Udon was released into Zakura Common, a shared cryptography library used by Zakura and other Zcash projects, according to Project Tachyon leader Sean Bowe. Think of Common as software that handles some of the heavy mathematical work behind creating and checking private transactions. Bowe’s team and Dev Ojha’s Valar Group jointly develop Zakura.

A Zcash wallet has to prove that a private payment is valid without revealing who paid whom or how much. Computers running the network then check that proof.

Earlier improvements to Common cut the time needed to create one from more than three seconds to under 200 milliseconds in some tests, as CoinDesk reported in August.

If private payments become far more common, those computers will have much more data to handle.