diff --git a/lib/Cargo.toml b/lib/Cargo.toml
index ef6f5e42..7edc50d1 100644
--- a/lib/Cargo.toml
+++ b/lib/Cargo.toml
@@ -12,7 +12,6 @@ rust-version = "1.74.0"
 [dependencies]
 anyhow = "1.0"
 containers-image-proxy = "0.5.5"
-async-compression = { version = "0.4", features = ["gzip", "tokio", "zstd"] }
 camino = "1.0.4"
 chrono = "0.4.19"
 olpc-cjson = "0.1.1"
@@ -43,6 +42,7 @@ tokio = { features = ["io-std", "time", "process", "rt", "net"], version = ">= 1
 tokio-util = { features = ["io-util"], version = "0.7" }
 tokio-stream = { features = ["sync"], version = "0.1.8" }
 tracing = "0.1"
+zstd = "0.13.1"
 
 indoc = { version = "2", optional = true }
 xshell = { version = "0.2", optional = true }
diff --git a/lib/src/container/unencapsulate.rs b/lib/src/container/unencapsulate.rs
index b6efb8d8..99f9f9e4 100644
--- a/lib/src/container/unencapsulate.rs
+++ b/lib/src/container/unencapsulate.rs
@@ -36,7 +36,7 @@ use crate::container::store::LayerProgress;
 use super::*;
 use containers_image_proxy::{ImageProxy, OpenedImage};
 use fn_error_context::context;
-use futures_util::{Future, FutureExt};
+use futures_util::{Future, FutureExt, TryFutureExt as _};
 use oci_spec::image as oci_image;
 use std::sync::{Arc, Mutex};
 use tokio::{
@@ -189,22 +189,76 @@ pub async fn unencapsulate(repo: &ostree::Repo, imgref: &OstreeImageReference) -
     importer.unencapsulate().await
 }
 
+/// Take an async AsyncBufRead and handle decompression for it, returning
+/// a wrapped AsyncBufRead implementation.
+/// This is implemented with a background thread using a pipe-to-self,
+/// and so there is an additional Future object returned that is a "driver"
+/// task and must also be checked for errors.
+pub(crate) fn decompress_bridge<'a>(
+    src: impl tokio::io::AsyncBufRead + Send + Unpin + 'static,
+    is_zstd: bool,
+) -> Result<(
+    // This one is the input reader
+    impl tokio::io::AsyncBufRead + Send + Unpin + 'static,
+    // And this represents the worker thread doing copying
+    impl Future<Output = Result<()>> + Send + Unpin + 'static,
+)> {
+    // We use a plain unix pipe() because it's just a very convenient
+    // way to bridge arbitrarily between sync and async with a worker
+    // thread.  Yes, it involves going through the kernel, but
+    // eventually we'll replace all this logic with podman anyways.
+    let (tx, rx) = tokio::net::unix::pipe::pipe()?;
+    let task = tokio::task::spawn_blocking(move || -> Result<()> {
+        // Convert the write half of the pipe() into a regular blocking file descriptor
+        let tx = tx.into_blocking_fd()?;
+        let mut tx = std::fs::File::from(tx);
+        // Convert the async input back to synchronous.
+        let src = tokio_util::io::SyncIoBridge::new(src);
+        let bufr = std::io::BufReader::new(src);
+        // Wrap the input in a decompressor; I originally tried to make
+        // this function take a function pointer, but yeah that was painful
+        // with the type system.
+        let mut src: Box<dyn std::io::Read> = if is_zstd {
+            Box::new(zstd::stream::read::Decoder::new(bufr)?)
+        } else {
+            Box::new(flate2::bufread::GzDecoder::new(bufr))
+        };
+        // We don't care about the number of bytes copied
+        let _n: u64 = std::io::copy(&mut src, &mut tx)?;
+        Ok(())
+    })
+    // Flatten the nested Result<Result<>>
+    .map(crate::tokio_util::flatten_anyhow);
+    // And return the pair of futures
+    Ok((tokio::io::BufReader::new(rx), task))
+}
+
 /// Create a decompressor for this MIME type, given a stream of input.
 fn new_async_decompressor<'a>(
     media_type: &oci_image::MediaType,
-    src: impl AsyncBufRead + Send + Unpin + 'a,
-) -> Result<Box<dyn AsyncBufRead + Send + Unpin + 'a>> {
-    match media_type {
-        oci_image::MediaType::ImageLayerGzip => Ok(Box::new(tokio::io::BufReader::new(
-            async_compression::tokio::bufread::GzipDecoder::new(src),
-        ))),
-        oci_image::MediaType::ImageLayerZstd => Ok(Box::new(tokio::io::BufReader::new(
-            async_compression::tokio::bufread::ZstdDecoder::new(src),
-        ))),
-        oci_image::MediaType::ImageLayer => Ok(Box::new(src)),
-        oci_image::MediaType::Other(t) if t.as_str() == DOCKER_TYPE_LAYER_TAR => Ok(Box::new(src)),
-        o => Err(anyhow::anyhow!("Unhandled layer type: {}", o)),
-    }
+    src: impl AsyncBufRead + Send + Unpin + 'static,
+) -> Result<(
+    Box<dyn AsyncBufRead + Send + Unpin + 'static>,
+    impl Future<Output = Result<()>> + Send + Unpin + 'static,
+)> {
+    let r: (
+        Box<dyn AsyncBufRead + Send + Unpin + 'static>,
+        Box<dyn Future<Output = Result<()>> + Send + Unpin + 'static>,
+    ) = match media_type {
+        m @ (oci_image::MediaType::ImageLayerGzip | oci_image::MediaType::ImageLayerZstd) => {
+            let is_zstd = matches!(m, oci_image::MediaType::ImageLayerZstd);
+            let (r, driver) = decompress_bridge(src, is_zstd)?;
+            (Box::new(r), Box::new(driver) as _)
+        }
+        oci_image::MediaType::ImageLayer => {
+            (Box::new(src), Box::new(futures_util::future::ready(Ok(()))))
+        }
+        oci_image::MediaType::Other(t) if t.as_str() == DOCKER_TYPE_LAYER_TAR => {
+            (Box::new(src), Box::new(futures_util::future::ready(Ok(()))))
+        }
+        o => anyhow::bail!("Unhandled layer type: {}", o),
+    };
+    Ok(r)
 }
 
 /// A wrapper for [`get_blob`] which fetches a layer and decompresses it.
@@ -262,11 +316,13 @@ pub(crate) async fn fetch_layer_decompress<'a>(
                 progress.send_replace(Some(status));
             }
         };
-        let reader = new_async_decompressor(media_type, readprogress)?;
+        let (reader, compression_driver) = new_async_decompressor(media_type, readprogress)?;
+        let driver = driver.and_then(|()| compression_driver);
         let driver = futures_util::future::join(readproxy, driver).map(|r| r.1);
         Ok((reader, Either::Left(driver)))
     } else {
-        let blob = new_async_decompressor(media_type, blob)?;
+        let (blob, compression_driver) = new_async_decompressor(media_type, blob)?;
+        let driver = driver.and_then(|()| compression_driver);
         Ok((blob, Either::Right(driver)))
     }
 }
diff --git a/lib/tests/it/main.rs b/lib/tests/it/main.rs
index 464cab36..835119d5 100644
--- a/lib/tests/it/main.rs
+++ b/lib/tests/it/main.rs
@@ -401,10 +401,11 @@ async fn test_tar_write() -> Result<()> {
 #[tokio::test]
 async fn test_tar_write_tar_layer() -> Result<()> {
     let fixture = Fixture::new_v1()?;
-    let uncompressed_tar = tokio::io::BufReader::new(
-        async_compression::tokio::bufread::GzipDecoder::new(EXAMPLE_TAR_LAYER),
-    );
-    ostree_ext::tar::write_tar(fixture.destrepo(), uncompressed_tar, "test", None).await?;
+    let mut v = Vec::new();
+    let mut dec = flate2::bufread::GzDecoder::new(std::io::Cursor::new(EXAMPLE_TAR_LAYER));
+    let _n = std::io::copy(&mut dec, &mut v)?;
+    let r = tokio::io::BufReader::new(std::io::Cursor::new(v));
+    ostree_ext::tar::write_tar(fixture.destrepo(), r, "test", None).await?;
     Ok(())
 }