Boarding for Seoul — What’s Packed in Tezos’ Latest Protocol Trip
Breaking down Tezos’ latest protocol upgrade proposal for everyday users.
Another upgrade already? Yup. I’ve said it before, Tezos moves quietly, but steadily, and the next protocol upgrade proposal (19th to be exact!), Seoul, has dropped.
While this one doesn’t come with big headlines like “DAL activated” or “New staking role introduced,” it does introduce some important changes that improve how staking works, make the network more efficient, and open the door for smoother experiences across the board.
So, what’s coming with Seoul? Let’s break it down in plain English.
What’s Actually in the Seoul Upgrade?
Here are the three main changes Seoul brings, minus the jargon and fluff:
1. Native Multisig Accounts
This one’s been on the wishlist for a while. Until now, if a group of people wanted to control a wallet together, say a team, DAO, or a project, they had to use custom smart contracts to create a multisig setup. It worked in most cases, but it’s not ideal.
With Seoul, multisig accounts will be supported natively on Tezos.
That means you can now have wallets where multiple people need to sign off on a transaction, without having to mess with external contract logic. It’s safer, simpler, and way more useful for things like shared baking, institutional staking, or managing a community treasury. The feature uses tz4 accounts, which rely on BLS cryptography. From the protocol’s point of view, there’s no difference between single-user and multi-user tz4 accounts, it’s all handled under the hood.
2. Aggregated Attestations
Right now, every baker who endorses a block submits their attestation as a separate operation. That creates a lot of overhead.
Seoul changes this for tz4 bakers, allowing their attestations to be bundled into a single operation per block. That’s a huge efficiency gain, reducing data size from around 900MB per day down to just 14MB. Less data means faster syncing, lower bandwidth requirements, and fewer storage headaches.
This upgrade doesn’t remove support for tz1, tz2, or tz3 accounts, bakers using those can continue to participate. But the big performance improvements come from tz4 adoption. Over time, as more bakers switch to tz4, the network can simplify how endorsements work and let all bakers attest to every block, improving both security and reward distribution.
One thing to note: tz4 uses BLS signatures, which are more computationally demanding. As of now, Ledger hardware wallets and some popular cloud key management systems don’t support tz4 baking, but alternative solutions are already in development.
3. Open Unstake Finalization
Unstaking your tez today means waiting four cycles (roughly four days) and then manually finalizing the operation to get your funds back. It’s a small task, but easy to forget, and something many users have asked to simplify.
Seoul introduces a small but meaningful change: anyone on the network can now finalize an unstake operation, not just the person who initiated it.
This allows wallets and dApps to automate the process for you. For example, a bot could scan the network for finalizable unstake operations and finalize them on your behalf. You’d unstake, wait the required time, and then your tez would just appear in your spendable balance, no extra clicks needed.
Keep in mind that this change doesn’t affect ownership. Only the account owner can initiate an unstake, and funds always return to the same account once finalized. It’s just about saving you time and making staking feel a little more seamless.
Why Seoul Matters
Seoul isn’t a flashy upgrade. It doesn’t bring shiny new features to the average user’s screen overnight. But it lays important groundwork. Native multisig accounts make Tezos friendlier for institutions and teams. Aggregated attestations improve performance and prepare the network for more scalable infrastructure. And open unstake finalization smooths out the user experience for stakers.
It’s the kind of upgrade that makes everything better without making a big fuss about it. And that’s kind of Tezos’ thing, evolve quietly, with purpose.
If you’re a baker, now’s the time to test (‘seoulnet’ is already out) and vote. The Seoul proposal has already been injected and at the time of writing, is going through the “Proposal” period of Tezos governance.
If you’re a delegator, make sure your stake is with a baker that participates in governance.
Tezos continues to improve, block by block, upgrade by upgrade. Seoul is another solid step forward. Another stepping stone for the Tezos X vision we are all waiting to come fully to life.
Boarding for Seoul — What’s Packed in Tezos’ Latest Protocol Trip was originally published in Tezos Commons on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.