2025-05-12 Nomos weekly

Nomos Weekly Update - 2025-05-12 §

Nomos Bedrock §

Research §

• Cryptarchia development:
  • Fork Choice Rule updated to use a 2-phase approach: bootstrapping and online phases
    • Bootstrapping phase is uncommitted to any block, using density checks for resilience against misbehaving peers
    • Online phase rejects forks older than k, committing to the k’th block
  • Causal Finality work focused on formalizing guarantees with happens-before relation
  • Bootstrapping and Synchronization specification redesigned to reflect new fork choice rules
    • Defines bootstrap fork choice rule enablement
    • Details block download methodology
    • Introduces bootstrapping from checkpoints using immutable block principles
• Mantle development:
  • Mantle Specification improvements with updated content, removing shielded notes
  • Anonymous Leader Reward Distribution Protocol draft completed
  • Service Reward Distribution Protocol draft completed
  • Proof of Quota Specification rewrite in progress for performance realism
  • Incentivizing Transaction Inclusion specification detailing private leader rewards
• Block processing framework:
  • Block Proposal Construction, Validation and Execution Specification scope expanded with enhanced structure
• P2P Network improvements:
  • Nomos P2P Network NAT Solution specification finalized with missing diagrams added
• SDP impact analysis:
  • Impact of Service Declaration Protocol on adversarial inference analyzing statistical implications

Development §

• Storage optimization:
  • New storage abstraction layer PR introducing clearer database interaction patterns
  • Block pruning groundwork: PR #1261, PR #1262, PR #1265
• P2P network enhancements:
  • Refactoring of nomos-libp2p code to split logic into different modules: PR #1266
  • NAT traversal state machine and AutoNAT behavior implementation planning
• Membership service:
  • Implementation sketch: PR #1268
  • RocksDB spawn blocking discussion: PR #1269
• Transaction framework:
  • Mantle transaction definitions in progress
  • ActivityContract removal from SDP implementation in progress

Nomos Bedrock Services §

Research §

• Data Availability advancements:
  • NomosDA Cryptographic Protocol v1.1 prepared with updates based on feedback
  • NomosDA Encoding Protocol reviewed
• Blend Network progress:
  • Blend Protocol v1 under review with comments being addressed
  • “Node Communication Strategy Guide” (formerly Tier 5) moved to appendix of Blend Protocol document

Development §

• Data Availability implementation:
  • DA v1.1 implementation PR #1259 reviewed for consistency with specification

Nomos Applications §

Development §

• Sovereign Rollups planning:
  • “How to build a Sovereign Rollup on Nomos” document in development
• Validium PoC:
  • Updated README with links to zksync-era fork repository: PR #72

Road to Production, Testnet and Tooling §

• Overwatch improvements:
  • Service lifecycle enhancement PR #79 adding granular control
  • Replaced outdated LifecycleHandlers with simpler mechanism
  • Upgraded communications to async with improved message handling
  • Enhanced graceful shutdown priority
• Code quality:
  • Introduction of additional Clippy lints: PR #1263
• Nomos Hardware Requirements documentation created

Documentation §

• Documentation progress:
  • Nomos Monthly for April published with offsite updates
  • Sovereign Rollups on Nomos blog article draft in progress