Tezos implemented its latest protocol upgrade, Tallinn, on Saturday, reducing base-layer block times to six seconds and cutting storage costs to speed finality. The change is the network’s 20th protocol update and aims to lower latency and improve throughput.
Tallinn lets all validators, known as bakers, attest to every block instead of only subsets. “This is achieved through the use of BLS cryptographic signatures, which aggregate hundreds of signatures into just one per block. By lightening the load on nodes, it also opens the door to further block time reductions.”
The upgrade also adds an address indexing mechanism that removes redundant address data and reduces application storage needs. Tezos spokespeople said it improves storage efficiency by a factor of 100 (Ed. note: this materially lowers node storage requirements).
First-generation blockchains ran at roughly seven to thirty transactions per second, limiting base-layer payments. The Bitcoin protocol produces blocks about every ten minutes, which hinders everyday payments (Data shows).
These constraints pushed networks to scale with layer-2 solutions like the Lightning Network. The Ethereum ecosystem relies on layer-2s and a modular design, while monolithic networks like Solana combine execution, consensus, and data availability on one layer.
