Meeting summary: Monero Research Lab, 13 July 2022

This is a comprehensive summary, with added reference links, of the MRL meeting¹ from July 13th 2022, 1700 UTC.

Logs

The raw, unedited, full log file for this meeting:

220713-mrl.log (80 lines)

Summary

Note: it is possible that some relevant information may be missing from this summary; read the full log file for the complete, unedited discussion.

• Participants: 10 (UkoeHB², rbrunner³, jberman⁴, Rucknium⁵, ArticMine⁶, dangerousfreedom⁷, kayabanerve⁸, hyc⁹, wernervasquez¹⁰, r4v3r23¹¹)

• (1) Updates

  • (1.1) on Monero fixes and the upcoming network upgrade¹²:

  • jberman submitted perfect-daemon’s PR 7760 socket connection fixes with merge conflicts resolved (#8426¹³), submitted a patch for zmq to publish txs submitted to the daemon (#8427¹⁴) and updated openmonero¹⁵ for the v15 hard fork

  • (1.2) on Monero address specs:

  • kayabanerve published a new address specification (Featured Addresses¹⁶); one variant (the Guaranteed¹⁷ feature) removes the potential for the burning bug¹⁸

  • (1.3) on Bulletproofs¹⁹:

  • dangerousfreedom announced plans to implement BP in Rust by the end of this month or next one

  • (1.4) on Seraphis²⁰:

  • UkoeHB reported starting work on integrating legacy cryptonote outputs into the main transaction type so they can be spent alongside normal seraphis enotes

  • (1.5) on outreach initiatives:

  • Rucknium announced that MAGIC Monero Fund²¹ was considering targeted outreach to external researchers to apply for research grants

• (2) Open discussions

  • (2.1) on Bulletproofs++²²:

  • rbrunner was wondering if BP++ was peer reviewed; Rucknium clarified that it was not (yet)

  • (2.1) on Seraphis and Jamtis²³ next steps:

  • UkoeHB shared plans to integrate cryptonote inputs and add coinbase tx type and was looking for anyone else interested in looking at the code and perhaps investigate/implement the wallet-side features of Jamtis, build wallets that use the seraphis library interface for building/handling txs and enotes and integrate Seraphis into the daemon/ledger

  • rbrunner was interested to contribute, but unsure when, how and how much they could get involved; dangerousfreedom was also keen to contribute, probably in two months after building skills and understanding

  • Rucknium was interested in ways to get the cryptography in Seraphis to be peer-reviewed

  • UkoeHB posted a PSA related to their CCS proposal²⁴ after underestimating how much work was necessary to reach the point of ‘write a wallet’: I won’t actually make a wallet proof-of-concept, since designing the API and internal caches isn’t really my domain. The remaining time of my CCS will be spent finishing the core library

  • (2.2) on future research plans:

  • Rucknium was thinking about researching churning²⁵ best practices, after OSPEAD²⁶

  • UkoeHB thought that jberman’s suggestion to get the poc audited and paper reviewed was a good idea

Let me know if you find this kind of report helpful.

Feedback, edits always welcome @/about.

-3RA