Tezos’ Granada upgrade passes, bringing faster transactions and less fees to network

Tezos‘ Granada upgrade has squeaked by under the wire, approved by the community last night in the 12th day of a 15-day voting window.

Not a single vote was cast against the upgrade, which is expected to lower transaction fees while speeding up transaction times, but it had been in danger of not gaining a quorum.

By last night, however, 54.1 per cent of the community had voted for Granada. At least 53.4 per cent had been needed to gain a quorum.

#Tezos upgrade protocol granted the last minute…
I’m lovin’ it!

— Tezbian (@iamatezbian) July 20, 2021

When the upgrade goes into effect in 16 days, it is expected to reduce gas (transaction) costs by a factor of three to six, halve the time between blocks from 60 seconds to 30, and speed up the time it takes before transactions can be considered final.

It’ll also include “liquidity baking,” which will incentivise users to provide liquidity between Tezos and tzBTC, a Tezos token backed by Bitcoin.

Many users “stake” their Tezzies with bakers in return for rewards, which has created a bit of a liquidity problem on the network that this proposal is designed to address.