Zcash Launches Zakura Full Node Ahead of Ironwood Upgrade

Zcash has launched a new full node called Zakura, maintained by a team independent of the Zcash Foundation. The client is a trimmed, fast-sync branch of Zebra and is compatible with the legacy zcashd client, which will reach end of life. According to ChainCatcher, Zakura is part of Zcash's scaling efforts alongside Project Tachyon and private information retrieval research, aimed at increasing network throughput by reducing validation data and removing wallet performance bottlenecks. Zakura also supports the Ironwood upgrade, scheduled to activate on July 28. The upgrade introduces a turnstile mechanism designed to limit withdrawals from the Orchard shielded pool and control counterfeit ZEC that could be generated by a long-standing soundness bug.