Arborist Call #91 | R&D Updates
The Zcash Arborist Calls are bi-weekly protocol development meetings focused on tracking upcoming protocol deployment logistics, consensus node implementation issues, and protocol research.
This summary focuses on the last call that took place on 11/28/2024
We opened the meeting with Arya from @ZcashFoundation
Since the last Arborist call, PRs have been merged fixing several CI issues getblockheader RPC method updated minimum protocol version Zebra expects from its peers during initial sync.
Zebra also now verifies mempool transactions spending unmined outputs of other txs in the mempool so TEX transactions work as expected.
There are also PRs open for skipping semantic verification of transactions and blocks that are already in the mempool.
Team has now added issued Zcash Shielded Asset states to Zebra state in @qeditzkp's fork of Zebra, and are adding an RPC method for querying the issued asset states as well!
Next we had Crosslink updates with @zooko
Shielded Labs repo now has rationale, user experience goals and deployment goals updated. Steps are tied back to the goals as GitHub tickets - (current roadmap). Exploration, feedback and help are welcome!
@ShieldedLabs is interviewing for 2 mid - senior level Rust engineers. If you're a good Rust engineer and who loves @Zcash please apply!
FROST updates with @conradoplg. Work continues on finishing up the FROST server. Private key authentication has been added.
It initially used username and password. As each participant generates a key pair to encrypt and authenticate comms it could be used for the server.
Moving forward, the server will be made robust against DoS attacks and possibly storing sessions in database following production release.
Network Sustainability Mechanism: The Zcash community has begun participating in polls to gauge sentiment on the NSM being included in NU7. Polls so far include @Zechub, the ongoing Coinholder Poll, with ZCAP and ZAC to follow next.
@ShieldedLabs has detailed the mechanism in full: http://shieldedlabs.net/NSM If participating in the polls please read!
ZIP editors have written a community forum post with feedback on whether each ZIP is feasible, safe, and useful.
On Discord, @FeministPLT raised concern over the usefulness of ZIP 235, specifically that burning 60% of transaction fees wouldn't be enough to justify the consensus change. https://zips.z.cash/zip-0235.
Shielded Labs is open to testing the mechanism with a node software update first
ZIP 233 has been discussed as possibly being used for ZSA issuance where larger fees are charged for creating new assets as it uses up a row in the database...
ZIP 317 may also be updated whereby a standard rule, nodes would reject mempool transactions that do not burn a certain amount of funds - By comparison ZIP 235 is less immediately useful and could be done after NU7 has already been deployed.
The differences between NSM and Lockbox (recently implemented in NU6) were discussed: ZIP 234 was described by @cwgoes as 'A credibly neutral mechanism to fund the roles and objectives (e.g. development) that the Zcash community considers to be valuable'
It's a purely permissionless, automatic process, like Bitcoin. If merged and activated now, it resolves open questions as to whether plans will change over the next year+.
Thank you for reading!