Tezos successfully implemented its 18th protocol upgrade, Rio, on May 1, introducing significant improvements to staking flexibility and Layer 2 (L2) scaling capabilities. The upgrade was activated through Tezos’ on-chain governance process following community-wide validator (baker) participation.
Notably, the Rio upgrade supports Tezos’ roadmap under “Tezos X,” aiming to streamline the staking process, enhance network performance, and accelerate the adoption of its Data Availability Layer (DAL), a key component for L2 scalability.
Faster Staking and Enhanced User Experience
One of the central changes introduced in Rio is the reduction of Tezos’ network cycle length from approximately three days to one day. Significantly, this enables users to stake and unstake funds more efficiently, improving the speed and accessibility of on-chain participation.
Commenting on this innovation, Yann Régis-Gianas, Head of Engineering at Nomadic Labs said:
This upgrade reaffirms the Tezos ecosystem’s commitment to achieving unmatched L2 scalability. Economic activity on L2 platforms like Etherlink is growing rapidly, and with the Rio upgrade, the Tezos protocol is perfectly positioned to support and amplify this growth.”
The shorter cycle time will enhance user experience across Web3 applications by allowing quicker transitions between staking and interacting with dApps. Meanwhile, the developers plan to reduce the unstaking period even further in future upgrades, pending security reviews.
Incentives for Layer 2 Growth and Network Stability
To incentivize DAL participation, the Rio upgrade reallocates 10% of staking rewards to bakers that contribute to DAL functionality. The Tezos DAL, first introduced in the 2024 Paris upgrade, enables up to 4,000x more transaction data to be published on-chain, making it critical for efficient L2 rollups like Etherlink.
DAL’s integration into the core protocol allows it to inherit Tezos’ security model, with bakers ensuring the availability and validity of off-chain data required by L2 systems. The updated rewards mechanism reflects the growing strategic importance of this infrastructure.
Rio also introduces stricter inactivity thresholds for validators. Bakers will now be marked inactive after two days of unresponsiveness, losing consensus rights until they become active again. The goal is to strengthen network reliability and avoid slowdowns caused by non-participating validators.
A Community-Driven Development
The Rio upgrade was developed collaboratively by Nomadic Labs, Trilitech, and Functori—three core development teams within the Tezos ecosystem. It reflects the platform’s hallmark feature: self-amendment through on-chain governance, allowing the protocol to evolve without hard forks.
Rio arrives nearly seven years after the launch of the Tezos Mainnet and demonstrates the community’s long-standing commitment to scalable infrastructure, efficient consensus, and user-friendly innovation.
