diff --git a/scribe/hub/jsonrpc.py b/scribe/hub/jsonrpc.py
index cf9f0c4..a92c0ec 100644
--- a/scribe/hub/jsonrpc.py
+++ b/scribe/hub/jsonrpc.py
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
 import itertools
 import json
+import ujson
 import typing
 import asyncio
 from asyncio import Event
@@ -186,7 +187,7 @@ class JSONRPC:
     def encode_payload(cls, payload):
         """Encode a Python object as JSON and convert it to bytes."""
         try:
-            return json.dumps(payload).encode()
+            return ujson.dumps(payload).encode()
         except TypeError:
             msg = f'JSON payload encoding error: {payload}'
             raise ProtocolError(cls.INTERNAL_ERROR, msg) from None
diff --git a/setup.py b/setup.py
index 438b203..737fcbb 100644
--- a/setup.py
+++ b/setup.py
@@ -42,7 +42,8 @@ setup(
         'hachoir==3.1.2',
         'filetype==1.0.9',
         'grpcio==1.38.0',
-        'lbry-rocksdb==0.8.2'
+        'lbry-rocksdb==0.8.2',
+        'ujson==5.1.0'
     ],
     extras_require={
         'lint': ['pylint==2.10.0'],