Tezos Activates ‘Nairobi’ Upgrade With 8X Increase In Transactions Per Second

June 26, 2023 - Tezos, the blockchain platform known for its Proof-of-Stake consensus and on-chain governance, has launched its latest core protocol upgrade called “Nairobi”. This significant update is set to bring faster and more efficient application execution on the Tezos blockchain by introducing various enhancements to the Tezos protocol.

One of the key improvements is the upgrade to Smart Rollups, Tezos' scaling solution. With Nairobi, Smart Rollups can now be seamlessly upgraded in sync with the protocol using Tezos' on-chain governance. This advancement offers developers a highly reliable, secure, and decentralised scaling solution that Tezos says outperforms other blockchain alternatives. Furthermore, this upgrade has led to an  eightfold increase in transactions per second (TPS) while reducing transaction costs.

Arthur Breitman, the co-founder of Tezos, remarked, "The Nairobi upgrade once again demonstrates the strength of the Tezos community and solidifies Tezos' position as a leader in scalability. Serious applications demand top-notch technology, and Tezos sets itself apart with its resilience, adaptability, and substance, in contrast to industry norms."

The Nairobi upgrade empowers the Tezos network to handle up to eight times more operations per second, while decreasing the cost per transaction for most operations. Unlike the previous flat-rate model, which treated gas costs for signature verification uniformly, the new model ensures fairness to users by aligning authentication costs more accurately with the required computational resources.

Nairobi accelerates the entire chain by fine-tuning the consensus mechanism, resulting in reliable operations with reduced latencies. Additionally, the upgrade maintains low hardware requirements for participating in consensus, promoting decentralisation while simultaneously increasing consensus rewards for Tezos "bakers."

With Nairobi, Smart Rollups can evolve alongside the Tezos layer 1 protocol. This integration enables Rollups to be fully prepared for and instantly capitalise on the capabilities provided by future protocol upgrades. Smart Rollups on Tezos are integrated into Layer 1 itself rather than being deployed as smart contracts, making them more efficient, dependable, and decentralized compared to other Layer 2 solutions like Arbitrum or Optimism.

As with every Tezos upgrade, Nairobi has undergone a rigorous validation and approval process through the Tezos blockchain's on-chain governance. The successful activation of Nairobi represents the culmination of months-long collaboration between developer teams and the wider Tezos community.

This update, involving contributions from esteemed developers such as Nomadic Labs, Marigold, TriliTech, Oxhead Alpha, Tarides, DaiLambda, and Functori, ushers in a new era of scalability for Tezos. Tezos says that the update "unveils a new era of scalability and opens the door for exciting new applications to be deployed on the Tezos blockchain.'