For the last month, the team has been preparing for the release of test-net1. We have been focusing on extending the SWIM membership (Gossip) and consensus protocols, in order to ensure they work as expected before release. While this continues to progress steadily, we have identified several key areas we wish to optimise to ensure a smooth release for test-net1.

Notable updates:

We have updated Tangram’s forked libsecp256k library to include Bulletproofs. Bulletproofs add optimisation to rangeproofs and further efficiencies. More can be read why Bulletproofs are important, but as a summary (*extracted from below article):

Bulletproofs are general zero-knowledge proofs;

They can be used to extend multiparty protocols such as multisignatures or Zero-Knowledge Contingent Payments;

Bulletproofs provide a much more efficient version of CT rangeproofs (when batch verifying, over 23x speed improvement);

These rangeproofs can be aggregated within transactions with only logarithmic size increase;

With sufficient aggregation, such as in Provisions, batch verification becomes over 120x as fast as the old proofs:

Node improvements

Fix SignMessage call to OnionService ;

call to ; Fix Membership route;

Additional logging for new services;

Reconfigure Serilog;

Fix FailureDetectionTests;

Utilize HttpClientFactory to avoid socket exhaustion or expiration;

to avoid socket exhaustion or expiration; SocksPortHandler Singleton Experiment;

Singleton Experiment; Adding Protobuf support;

Migration of consensus into Github: