[2025] April Updates
Navigators,
As we step into May and our ecosystem gears up for the public reveal of the PoPS blockchain, here are the highlights from the past few weeks.
First and foremost, we’ve launched the third update of the Navio Testnet with some major improvements. Synchronisation is smoother than ever, thanks to the relocation of Proof of Stake proofs from the header into the block structure, resulting in more efficient node syncing. Wallet rescans are significantly faster due to parallel verification, and staking performance has been enhanced with deterministic selection of staker candidates. This gives us improved scalability, especially with large validator sets.
Additionally, the documentation for the libblsct Python module is now available at libblsct-bindings Documentation, giving out detailed guidance for those looking to integrate the BLS confidential transactions library.
Being one of the first of its kind, we thought we’d give the public a series of quizzes to see how much about PoPS they truly know. Overall, good instincts. Congratulations everyone on the knowledge ;)
Yep, most correctly identified that PoPS proves staking eligibility without exposing balances, thanks to zero-knowledge proofs. Close one, but half of the voters still nailed why Pedersen Commitments are ideal for private staking: they’re ultra secure for anonymity and require no trusted setup. And a big win for the metadata question. It looks like people clearly understand that even if identity and balances are hidden, consistent behavior can still leave a fingerprint. That’s why PoPS counters this by making staking patterns from the same user look like they can be attributed to different entities.
But some of the questions were more tricky. Although tempting, Bulletproof-style set membership proofs are designed to hide which coin is being staked, and who is staking it, not the coin age. That’s the key behind why no one can trace a staked coin to a specific wallet.
Hardest one? Fork choice. Only 18.2% got it right. The correct answer was the lowest accumulated PoS Target. Instead of counting how many blocks a chain has, PoPS looks at how hard those blocks were to create. A lower target means a block took more effort to stake — so when two chains compete, PoPS picks the one that shows the most staking effort overall. It’s a quieter and more secure kind of consensus.
As always, thank you to everyone who participated.
In privacy news, Monero recently launched an FCMP++ optimization competition to optimize two of their libraries. The prizes are set to be 100XMR and 250XMR, and it is open for anyone to enter. Onwards!
Meanwhile, reports surfaced of a hacker converting $330M stolen Bitcoin into Monero, leading to an over 50% price spike in XMR. As a testament to the strength of the protocol’s privacy features, the source of the funds has so far remained untraceable.
April 24 also marked one year since the arrest of the Samourai Wallet developers, a stark reminder of the intense scrutiny privacy tools are facing in crypto, and how long and difficult the road to proving one’s innocence can be in this absurd environment. Keep supporting those fighting the good fight.
Until the next one. Cheers!
