Tezos Tallinn cuts block time to 6 seconds

Tezos has activated Tallinn, the blockchain’s 20th protocol upgrade, which shortens Layer-1 block time to 6 seconds.

Developed by Nomadic Labs, Trilitech and Functori, the upgrade followed an on-chain governance process with broad participation from bakers and community members, the company said in a statement.

Tallinn reduces latency and speeds finality on the network’s settlement layer. It pairs with Etherlink, Tezos’ EVM-compatible Layer-2, which the company said already confirms transactions in under 50 milliseconds and is now backed by Layer-1 finality in two blocks, or 12 seconds. “Adapting to market demand 20 times over 7 years without network disruptions, and in a fully decentralized way, is undeniable proof of Tezos’ reliability and future-proof design,” said Yann Régis-Gianas, Head of Engineering at Nomadic Labs.

The upgrade enables all bakers to attest to every block using aggregated BLS signatures, which the company said strengthens security, makes staking rewards more predictable and reduces node load. Tallinn also introduces an Address Indexing Registry that can improve storage efficiency by up to 100x for apps using the Michelson runtime by eliminating redundant address data. “Based on inputs from Tezos builders, our development team is excited to be able to offer such drastic improvements for enterprise-scale apps, large NFT ledgers, and other setups storing many addresses,” said Yann Régis-Gianas, Head of Engineering at Nomadic Labs.