2024-10-28 Nomos weekly

PPoS / Consensus / DA §

Research §

• Reviewed transaction fee mechanisms and proposed a modification of the StableFee model for Nomos.
• Researched other implementations of GHOST to identify any missing elements. GHOST appears highly effective, removing adversarial advantages from network turbulence, which is crucial given our use of the mixnet. Without GHOST, a substantial increase in block times would be needed, leading to inflated finality times. Details can be found here.
• Published the PCS intro article on our blog: Commitment Schemes for Data Availability.

Development §

• PR #837 (Node) (open) - Moved PoL into nomos-core to consolidate proofs in a single location, removing chain data format and proof system definitions from the ledger crate to improve data modeling.
• PR #852 (Node) - DA: Reconstruction test for N/2 of the original data.
• PR #853 (Node) - Implemented task abortion for DA network backends.

Mixnet §

Research §

• Reviewed the incentivization mechanism for the blending protocol, focusing on an introductory discussion and high-level overview. This is the entry point for Mixnet tokenomics.
• Updated the Mixnet economy document with new insights into the feasibility of pegging Mixnet rewards to measurable metrics.

Development §

• PR #843 and PR #844 (Node) - Integrated core components into the Mix protocol.
• PR #845 (Node) - Updated Mix protocol with Persistent Transmission.
• PR #846 (Node) - Updated Temporal Processor in the Mix protocol.
• PR #847 (Node) - Updated Message Blend integrating the Temporal Processor.
• PR #859 (Node) (in review) - Implemented the mix packet algorithm.

Coordination Layer §

Research §

• Examined the private atomic transfer scenario, preparing notes in pseudocode form for implementation guidance. Relevant details were added to the main document, with protocol adjustments underway (e.g., removing zone_id for simplicity).
• Reviewed “Private and atomic exchange of assets over zero knowledge based payment ledger” to explore encryption methods for private transfers, summarized in this document.

Development §

• PR #835 (Node) - Added preliminary transaction definitions without proofs and reorganized nomos-core. Moved the cl crate within nomos-core and restructured nomos-core/chain-defs to separate data models from proof formats.
• PR #850 (Node) (open) - Added proof definitions for CL transactions, enforcing proof validation during deserialization for type-safe verification.

Zone and Apps §

Research §

• No updates this week.

Development §

• No updates this week.

Testnet and Tooling §

Development §

• PR #849 (Node) - Insights: nomos-tracing crate. Created a configurable tracing crate supporting logs, metrics, and OpenTelemetry traces. Successfully tested with testnet nodes, accessible via Logos SSO at nomos.tech.
• PR #851 and PR #854 (Node) - CLI updates: added functionality to push data to the executor and pull from validators.
• PR #855 (Node) - Debugging setup for gathering logs and traces from local integration tests, using the same setup as testnet for analysis in Grafana.
• PR #839 (Node) - Executor in the testnet setup: added Docker Compose scripts to run an executor as nomos-node-3 with HTTP API on port 18083. Requested an SSO Proxy for the Nomos testnet from the infra team.

Miscellaneous §

• No updates this week.