Zcash2026-07-19 05:38:39Zcash launches Zakura full node with a stated goal of 50,000 transactions per secondZcash has introduced Zakura, a new full node maintained by a team separate from the Zcash Foundation. The release is described as a trimmed, fast-sync branch of Zebra and is compatible with the legacy zcashd client, which is set to reach end of life on July 18. According to the announcement carried by Odaily, Zakura is one part of Zcash’s broader scaling effort alongside Project Tachyon and research into private information retrieval. The stated objective is to reduce validation data and remove wallet performance bottlenecks so the network can scale toward Visa- and Mastercard-level throughput, or 50,000 transactions per second. Zakura also supports the Ironwood, or NU6.3, upgrade scheduled to activate on July 28. That upgrade adds a turnstile mechanism designed to limit withdrawals from the Orchard shielded pool and control counterfeit ZEC that could be produced by a long-standing soundness bug.1970
Zcash2026-07-19 05:38:50Zcash launches Zakura full node with support for Ironwood upgrade on July 28Zcash has introduced a new full node client called Zakura, according to ChainCatcher. The software is maintained by a team that operates independently of the Zcash Foundation and is released as a trimmed, fast-sync branch of Zebra. It also remains compatible with the legacy zcashd client, which is approaching the end of its lifecycle. The release is part of Zcash’s broader scaling effort. Alongside Project Tachyon and research into private information retrieval, Zakura is intended to help raise network throughput by reducing the amount of data required for verification and removing wallet performance bottlenecks. The stated target is to move throughput toward levels associated with Visa and Mastercard. Zakura also supports the Ironwood upgrade, or NU6.3, scheduled to activate on July 28. That upgrade adds a turnstile mechanism designed to restrict withdrawals from the Orchard shielded pool and control counterfeit ZEC that could have been created by a long-standing soundness bug.1940
Zcash2026-07-19 00:33:00ZODL founder says Zcash’s original node software zcashd has officially retiredZODL founder Josh Swihart said zcashd, the original official node software for Zcash, has stopped receiving maintenance as planned at block height 3,417,100. In his post, Swihart said the Zcash network continues running without interruption on Zebra and Zakura, two modern Rust-based node implementations, while the Zallet wallet has replaced the zcashd wallet. He wrote that blocks are still being produced, but the original software that gave life to Zcash has now formally retired after running for 10 years. zcashd began as a fork of Bitcoin Core v0.11.2 and launched the Zcash network on Oct. 28, 2016. According to the post, it marked the first large-scale production deployment of zk-SNARKs and served as an experiment in whether zero-knowledge cryptography could secure real value on a public blockchain. Swihart also said every network upgrade in Zcash history was carried out through zcashd, from Sprout, Overwinter and Sapling to later releases including Blossom, Heartwood and Canopy, as well as NU5 and the Orchard pool, before its retirement ahead of Ironwood.1500
