Tezos completes Tallinn upgrade, reducing block time to 6 seconds

Tezos implemented its latest protocol upgrade, Tallinn, last week, reducing the base layer block time to 6 seconds. This is the 20th major update for Tezos since its launch in 2018, completed without the need for a network fork.

The Tallinn upgrade lowers block time, cuts storage costs, and reduces latency, thereby accelerating the network's final confirmation time. The upgrade allows all validators (known as bakers) to validate each block, rather than the previous subset validation model. This is achieved through BLS cryptographic signatures, aggregating hundreds of signatures into a single signature for each block, reducing the load on nodes.

The upgrade also introduces an address indexing mechanism, removing redundant address data and improving storage efficiency by 100 times. A Tezos spokesperson stated that this upgrade demonstrates the trend of blockchain networks pursuing faster and higher throughput to handle more transactions per second and shorten settlement times, meeting the growing demand for use cases.