Welcome to our first update on Grin! Let’s get acquainted — it’s a lightweight implementation of the MimbleWimble protocol, a blockchain protocol that provides privacy and scalability gains by verifying that all tx are valid without needing to store the entire history of the chain. Grin team had a successful hard fork session. One of the most fundamental changes introduced on the Grin network is a tweak to one of two mining algorithms. Grin supports a mining algorithm that is friendly toward both general-purpose computing devices called GPUs and specialized hardware called ASICs, but recent fork looks to dissuade specialized machinery from being built for the GPU-friendly algorithm.
Moreover, wallet developers have been busy preparing releases that are compatible with the 2.0.0 hard fork, such as Niffler, Grin++ and wallet713. Grin team coped with a substantial amount of work: we can follow the current state of development via Meeting Notes, which are freely accessible on GitHub. Besides, CoinCodeCap listed Grin so that you can track the progress there as well. The community is just amazing; they constitute a loyal group of people, who are ready to help and support any noobie newcomer. They seem to be members of an excellent anonymous cryptofamily with local jokes and strong ties. For instance, they have GRINOIRE, “cypherpunk coffee-table book bound in leatherette with gold embossing and printed on bible paper is now in its final stages awaiting copies from the printer”. I love it.
Hope to know this company better — I bet they have something cool to tell the world. Let’s figure it out with us!
“Good programmers do programming not because they expect to get paid or get adulation by the public, but because it is fun.” — Linus Torvalds
Development
- Announcing the Grin node subteam: @antioch wrote: Announcing the Grin node subteam. In keeping with the new fledgling governance process, they are launching the node subteam alongside the nascent wallet.
What is a node?
- p2p layer
- validation of consensus rules
- block processing pipeline
- transaction processing (transaction pool, Dandelion etc.)
- “fast sync” process
- local storage (db + MMRs)
- network stability & performance
PoW — Is this part of node subteam?
Responsibilities of the subteam are outlined in the governance RFC above but generally, a node subteam member will be assisting with:
- Reviewing relevant RFCs and deciding the future direction of “the node”
- Reviewing other subteam RFCs as necessary (wallets interact closely with nodes, for example)
Bootstrapping
The first order of business is to define the structure of the subteam and sort out fundamental questions like “How is it organized?” and most importantly “Who are the members?”. These are purposefully being left as open questions here, with the hopes that the community will decide.
So for now, the initial node subteam consists of an open keybase channel.
- There are 112 open issues in /grin, and 27 open issues in /grin-wallet.
- Merged PRs: 5 in /grin | 1 in /grin-wallet | 3 unique contributors
- The wallet development sub team was announced by @yeastplume, join the bootstrapping process on Keybase.
- The node development sub team was announced by @antiochp, join the bootstrapping process on Keybase.
- @yeastplume’s weekly update.
Ecosystem
Any mention of a project in this section should not be seen as an endorsement.
Wallet developers have been busy preparing releases that are compatible with the 2.0.0 hard fork:
The next monthly ecosystem meeting is scheduled for Tue Aug 13 @ 17:00 UTC in grin/Ecosystem on Gitter.
- There are 113 open issues in /grin, and 29 open issues in /grin-wallet.
- Merged PRs: 5 in /grin | 2 in /grin-wallet | 6 unique contributors
- Last week’s development meeting covered the creation of the wallet and node sub-teams, an update on the work following our security audit work from @jo1tz, and planning for Grin v2.0.1 and v2.1.0.
- @antiochp simplified handling of the txhashset zip.
- @hashmap had a CPU performance improvement merged that uses blocking IO.
- @yeastplume is working on a wallet rework/refactoring and RFC. Read more in his weekly update.
- The next bi-weekly developer meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, Jul 23 @ 15:00 UTC in grin/Dev on Gitter. You can add topics to the agenda.
- The hard fork that will see the Grin network upgrade to v2.0.0 is happening at time T minus two days or so. Here’s a handy countdown timer provided by the folks at CoinGecko. Version 2 will put transaction incompatibility behind (permanently hopefully), and will see a lot of fixes and improvements, and provide a more stable ground for future upgrades. If you’ve not yet upgraded your node or wallet to v2.0.0, do so ASAP.
- @nijynot has been working on a redesign of the grin website and a new visual language for Grin.
- And if a scheduled hard fork isn’t enough action for you, there’s also been yet another Grin fork / Grin clone announced! Technically “Epic Cash” was announced, not that it’s actually a fork of the grin codebase.
Governance
- The wallet development sub team has been discussing how to self-organise, you can join the discussion in the Keybase team.
- The next bi-weekly governance meeting is scheduled for Tue Jul 16 @ 15:00 UTC in grin/Lobby on Gitter. You can add topics to the agenda.
Ecosystem
Any mention of a project in this section should not be seen as an endorsement.
- For those using Grin Gold Miner, there’s been some hard fork information announced.
- Vite wallet is also ready for 2.0.0.
- The next monthly ecosystem meeting is scheduled for Tue Aug 13 @ 17:00 UTC in grin/Ecosystem on Gitter.
Social encounters
- The GRINOIRE is almost ready, a 1200+ page cypherpunk anthology coffee-table book printed on gold embossed bible paper (?!), sold exclusively at TMGOX. Roughly 20 copies left, get your collectable and support Grin development. It is a printed book of primary documents relating to cypherpunk-cash history.
- In the last governance meeting, they decided to move forward trialing the RFC and sub-team proposals until the next meeting. They also discussed security audits and disclosure contact persons, and @j01tz was added as a point of contact.
- The last iteration of the RFC process can be found here.
- Check out 2Miners’ video “How to mine GRIN”. GRIN is now at the top of the 2CryptoCalc.com
Upcoming events:
- July 23, Seoul, KR: Grin Meetup
Roadmap
These are the current efforts that are a high priority for Grin in no particular order:
- Iterate on the newly adopted RFC process.
- Iterate on the adopted changes to the governance process, nurture the wallet and node dev teams and set up more sub-teams.
- Publish security audit report
- Iterate on the wallet library and improve functionality to make it easier for performant third-party wallets to be built
- Adopt a grinbox-style protocol as a recommended method for transaction building
- Initial I2P support
- Plan v3.0.0 hard fork coming up in six months
Finance
Grin has no accounts and no addresses.
- CoinCodeCap listed Grin. They are big fans of Grin and its development.
Partnerships and team members
With regards to partnerships, they have no partnerships at the moment, and no foreseeable plans to establish any.
Rumors
- Picture from Telegram Chat.
About Grin
Social media metrics
The graph above shows the dynamics of changes in the number of Grin Facebook likes, Reddit subscribers and Twitter followers. The information is taken from Grin coingecko.com.
