Dusk Network Development Update — September

A monthly development update series created to embrace the transparency and inclusivity that we strive for at Dusk Network.

Exactly a year ago we started the Development Update series to continuously keep the community updated on the events and achievements happening throughout the life of the Dusk Network protocol. We are constantly trying to push the technological envelope and deliver the most advanced version of our vision that the technology currently enables. Without further ado, let’s dive into the latest version of the Development Update!

Development

The team has refactored the consensus protocol, after discovering a few inefficiencies in the previous implementation hindering the theoretical throughput of the protocol. The refactor simplifies the bootstap procedure after a fallback, as well as increasing the stability of the block times.

During the implementation of Zerocaf, the team had discovered that the theoretical model of the Doppio curve did non suit a clean implementation of Ristretto, which is an abstraction for co-factor 8 curves implemented as part of the cryptography module of the Dusk Network protocol. The discovery of the flaw has led to the creation of a brand new curve, the parameters of which were chosen such that it enables the integration of all the current library features. More information on the curve will be communicated shortly.

Our latest team additions have enabled us to speed up the work on the Virtual Machine, which is a focal point of the state layer and the Confidential Security Contract standard. The team is currently working on the adaptations to the state storage and the contract call execution model in order for the module to work seamlessly with the two novel transaction models.

Research

Dmitry Khovratovich, our Cryptography Lead, has attended Starkware Sessions where he presented Poseidon in a panel discussing zero-knowledge proof-friendly hash functions. Poseidon plays a vital role in the Dusk Network protocol, powering the two new transactional models currently being implemented and the functionality of the Confidential Security Contract (XSC) standard.

The first transactional model has been released on July 2, 2019: ‘full privacy in account-based cryptocurrencies’ and the second is to be released later.

As was discussed in the previous months, the team is testing & analyzing alternative zero-knowledge proof systems with the goal to further decrease the proof size and the verification size. This is in response to the recent surge in the number of new research papers published on the subject. The current candidates include Sonic, Plonk, Marlin and Supersonic zero-knowledge proof systems.

Community

Since the launch of the first iteration of the Testnet in late July, the community has been constantly asking for updates and the reports on how the public testing phase has been going. We have published a report detailing the rate of usage, as well as other statistics and an outline of a bug discovered during the testing.

We recently started a new series detailing the economic model of Dusk Network. With Part I already published, the aim of the series is to get the community acquainted with the economic model of the Dusk Network and the reasoning behind the design choices that were made.

Dusk — Technology for Securities

Dusk streamlines the issuance of digital securities and automates trading compliance with the world’s first programmable and confidential securities.