262 KiB
Social copy:
Read about our 2024 in our recap blog, including:
◾️Nescience state separation architecture
◾️Zerokit releases
◾️R&D support for @Codex_storage, @Waku_org, @Nomos_tech, @ethstatus
◾️GossipSub optimisations
See you in 2025 for another productive year building digital public goods!
[Link to blog]
1/2
We’d love to hear the community’s thoughts and feedback about our ongoing work researching and developing free and open protocols for the @InstituteFT and broader web3 space.
Join us on the Vac forum to discuss any of the work mentioned in our 2024 Year in Review blog.
Vac 2024 Year in Review
As 2024 draws to a close, Vac is proud to look back on the milestones and breakthroughs that defined another year of researching and developing free and open digital public goods for the IFT and wider web3 ecosystem.
Vac comprises various subteams and service units, each with its own focus. Below, we celebrate each unit's achievements and look forward to its 2025 plans.
Nescience
Nescience is our state separation architecture that aims to enable private transactions and provide a general-purpose execution environment for classical applications.
Highlights
This year, the Nescience state separation architecture moved from exploration to real progress, taking big steps towards building a functional and reliable system. The team focused on turning ideas into something real, testing the proposed architecture, and understanding its strengths and weaknesses.
- ZkVM exploration and benchmarks
- Published deep reviews of 23 existing zkVMs
- Benchmarked the performance of the six zkVMs that best fit Nescience
- Defined the NSSA architecture
- Brought clarity to NSSA’s design and explained the system’s architecture in a lengthy exploratory blog post
- Built the sandboxed testnet
- Designed the first version of the node specification
- All core components (execution types, UTXOs, cryptographic primitives) implemented and being tested
- Testing the performance of all execution types in various scenarios
We also made progress on the essential parts of NSSA’s system, including:
- Key protocol for secure key management
- Execution types and circuits for reliable computation
- UTXO specification to manage state transitions effectively
- Cryptography module to ensure privacy and security
Looking forward
In 2025, the Nescience team plans to double down on what works, fix what doesn’t, and push NSSA closer to real-world use.
- Sandboxed testnet data analysis – the sandboxed testnet will be our primary data source that we will analyse to identify issues, limitations, and areas for improvement.
- Expanding the node – expand sandboxed components into a full node implementation with rigorous testing and iterative optimisation (to bridge the gap between proof of concept and production readiness).
- Finalising the architecture and RFC – after completing NSSA’s architecture, we will draft an RFC to ensure transparency and enable greater collaboration with the broader ecosystem.
- Testing real-life scenarios – applying NSSA to diverse, practical use cases to assess its adaptability, performance, and impact.
- Ongoing optimisation – ensure NSSA is robust, efficient, and ready to scale.
Token Economics (TKE)
The TKE Service Unit works closely with IFT portfolio projects to design and implement crypto-economic incentive structures.
Highlights
- Formalised and implemented Codex economic incentives in the Litepaper and simulations
- Orchestrated Status Network incentive structure and smart contract implementation
- Started building Nomos’ economic model
- Consulted and provided analysis of incentives for the Logos Operators ordinals project
- Drove discussions on the economic sustainability of Waku; helped define RLN membership and its payment mechanism
Looking forward
In 2025, TKE will continue to support IFT portfolio projects, working toward economic sustainability while strengthening relationships within the organisation. Additionally, the service unit aims to continue building its external reputation through partnerships and publications of relevant work on the Vac forum.
Quality Assurance (QA)
The QA Service Unit focuses on the development and execution of comprehensive test plans, including implementing unit and interoperability testing.
Highlights
- Matured Waku interoperability testing framework with coverage for all major protocols and features
- Began collaboration with Nomos, contributing to unit and integration testing
- Partnered with the Status team to test message reliability under unstable network conditions
Looking forward
- Extend collaboration with the Waku team on go-waku bindings and message reliability testing
- Cement working relationship with the Nomos team through the building of an E2E testing framework for higher-level node validation
- Work closely with Status’s QA team to enhance the functional testing framework
- Continue work on nim-libp2p testing
- Expand collaboration to additional projects
RFC
The RFC Service Unit takes on the responsibility of shepherding and editing specifications for IFT projects. The unit acts as a linchpin for ensuring standardised and interoperable protocols within the IFT ecosystem.
Highlights
- Working to implement RFC culture across the IFT ecosystem
- Began editorial work for several IFT portfolio projects: Status, Nomos, Waku, and Codex.
- Reworked our standards with regard to writing RFCs to a consensus-oriented specification system
Looking forward
- Continue to implement RFC culture across the IFT ecosystem
- Broaden the number of RFCs produced – particularly for IFT portfolio projects nearing public releases
- Include new projects with the rfc-index
- Encourage external projects requiring RFCs to establish relationships with the service unit
Applied Cryptography and ZK (ACZ)
The ACZ Service Unit focuses on cryptographic solutions and zero-knowledge proofs, enhancing the security, privacy, and trustworthiness of IFT portfolio projects and contributing to the overall integrity and resilience of the decentralised web ecosystem.
Highlights
- Researched a libp2p mix protocol and first proof-of-concept implementation (including ping and GossipSub over mix)
- Reseached a decentralised version of MLS (message layer security) with a first proof of concept
- Released Zerokit v0.6.0 and v0.5.0
- Added gnark RLN implementation
- Released Stealth Address Kit v0.3.1, v0.2.0, and v0.1.0
- Published:
Looking forward
- Ensure libp2p mix protocol is production-ready and support with the publishing of a paper and blog posts
- Begin explorations of additional research topics
- Release Zerokit v0.7
P2P
The P2P Service Unit specialises in peer-to-peer technologies and develops nim-libp2p, improves the libp2p GossipSub protocol, and assists IFT portfolio projects with the integration of P2P network layers.
Highlights
- Analysis and work on libp2p GossipSub improvements
- Published:
- PR to libp2p specifications about specific lib2p gossipsub improvements we researched and tested https://github.com/libp2p/specs/pull/654
Looking forward
- Add new features to nim-libp2p: QUIC transport, web transport
- Update specifications for libp2p GossipSub, aiming to significantly improve its performance
Distributed Systems Testing (DST)
The DST Service Unit’s primary objective is to assist IFT portfolio projects in understanding the scaling behaviour of their nodes within larger networks. By conducting thorough regression testing, the DST unit helps ensure the reliability and stability of projects.
Highlights
- DST compute resources transitioned from a hosted environment to a dedicated Vac Lab, enabling better customisation of resources and adding significantly more compute power – enabled much higher and more stable simulations (several hundred nodes to several thousand) and enhanced environmental control.
- Maintained monthly regression simulations for both Waku and Nim-libp2p, helping us to detect several issues and ensure that future versions do not introduce new ones.
- Successfully simulated and obtained results for all Waku protocols, relaying feedback to the team.
Looking forward
- More testing and simulations for Codex and Nomos
- Develop useful tools for all IFT portfolio projects – e.g. a v and data dashboard
Nim
Several IFT portfolio projects use the Nim ecosystem for its efficiency. The Nim Service Unit is responsible for the development and maintenance of Nim tooling.
Highlights
- Released Nim-libp2p (v1.7.1, v1.7.0, v1.6.0, v1.5.0, v1.4.0, v1.3.0, v1.2.0)
- Introduced SAT solver to the Nimble package manager that significantly improves dependency resolution
- Nim VSCode Extension
- Stabilised Nim Language Server
Looking forward
Smart Contracts (SC)
Heading into 2025
This year has seen Vac involved with many research, development, and testing undertakings in support of IFT portfolio projects. The digital public goods that emerge from our efforts not only benefit the organisation itself but are open and free to use by any project that would benefit.
As we move into 2025, we aim to nurture a stronger RFC culture across the IFT to encourage greater collaboration and knowledge sharing among portfolio projects. Our goal is to serve as an internal conduit of expertise within the organisation, supported by a strong RFC culture, the maintenance of a repository of internal knowledge creation, and the identification and facilitation of IFT project synergies. Such an approach should lead to greater efficiencies across the organisation.
We also aim to establish a diverse research community around Vac and our efforts in this regard are already underway. The final quarter of 2024 saw Vac step up its collaboration with the libp2p community and make a concerted effort to engage the community on the Vac forum. In 2025, we aim to continue working closely with those communities to which we already have ties, such as the libp2p, Ethereum, and Nim ecosystems.
See you next year!