Faster Cycles, New Rewards Model, Improved Resilience: Rio is Live!

Tezos has activated its 18th protocol upgrade, “Rio,” marking another milestone in its history of seamless, on‑chain governance without disruptive hard forks. This upgrade focuses on boosting network speed, scalability, and resilience, strengthening the foundation for the ambitious “Tezos X” roadmap and enhancing the performance of Layer 2 solutions like Etherlink.

Key Ideas

Faster cycles and better staking experience: Network cycle length is reduced from ~3 days to just 1 day, cutting unstaking time to around 4 days and improving liquidity and responsiveness for stakers.
Incentives for scalability via DAL: 10% of participation rewards are now allocated to bakers supporting the Data Availability Layer (DAL), a key component for scaling Etherlink and other Tezos rollups. Stricter inactivity tolerance (2 days) further improves resilience.

Why It Matters?

Developers can harness faster cycles and DAL incentives to build applications needing quick finality and high data throughput, such as real‑time DeFi platforms, high‑frequency games, or data‑heavy dApps. Integrating with the DAL can optimize data handling for Layer 2 and smart rollup solutions. Building user‑friendly tools that simplify staking while highlighting Rio’s security and efficiency gains can attract a broader, liquidity‑focused audience.