Zakura Releases Experimental P2Pv2 as Testnet Runs Dual-Stack
Zakura, a node implementation for Zcash, has announced experimental network-layer P2Pv2 to replace its legacy protocol inherited from Bitcoin. According to ChainCatcher, Testnet and Regtest currently run the new protocol alongside the old stack by default, while Mainnet still defaults to the legacy stack; the native protocol version is p2p-v2/3.P2Pv2 uses a new protocol stack designed to optimize latency, throughput or resilience, with one secure connection able to carry multiple independent services. Its zakura-quic transport is based on quinn-proto and uses QUIC, TLS 1.3 and Ed25519 peer authentication. It removes the Iroh dependency and lets nodes configure socket buffers, flow-control windows, timers and connection admission before the TLS handshake. Connections are made directly to peer addresses, without relays, external address discovery, automatic port mapping or QUIC NAT traversal. Nodes sign their identity, addresses, protocol scope and service IDs, allowing clients to find peers for specific services.Zakura says processing 50,000 transactions per second would require each full node to continuously receive about 100 MB/s of block data. NU7 blocks, by contrast, can carry up to 2 MB every 25 seconds, leaving current network throughput more than 1,000 times below that rate. Tachyon can shrink proofs after they enter a block, but the network still has to propagate large numbers of individual transactions.A separate zakura-header-chain component validates block headers, retains competing branches in a directed acyclic graph and selects the best eligible chain. Block synchronization schedules requests based on measured delivery rates from peers, while a verified commitment tree avoids rebuilding Sapling, Orchard and Ironwood trees for every block. Zakura says P2Pv2 still has known denial-of-service risks and is not yet a hardened trust boundary; production hardening, resource controls and block-relay protocols remain in development.