A week-start with Grin is an excellent start! Numerous thrilling changes occurred: the new website was migrated to grin.mw and redesigned (wow!), whilst attempts are made to regain control of the previous domain; Grin wallet 2.1.0-beta.3 and v2.1.0-beta4 have been released; grin-security is now up and running with canaries, keys, and audit information. Moreover, Grin’s security process was revamped, and there’s also been good progress on adding TOR support to the wallet. The official v2.1.0 release of the node and wallet is due this week. There are 103 open issues in /Grin, and 32 open issues in /grin-wallet with 7 merged PRs in /Grin and 3 in /grin-wallet. Yeastplume, in his recent update, reflected on the milestones and discussed the wallet side planning for 3.0.0. In the last development meeting, planning and branching following v2.1.0 were covered, some discussion on the TOR proof of concept, and whether they should be storing the kernel excess for all transactions. The last governance meeting approved lehnberg’s funding request, and successfully solved the website issue. As for the social side: Daniel Lehnberg was on the ZK podcast talking to Anna and Fredrik about Grin and the 9 months post mainnet launch; David Burkett was interviewed on GrinTalk; grincon1 date and place confirmed. The Grin community is one of the most loyal and bound: its members support the team and vividly partake in projects’ life. Local art (especially artworks in newsletters by @LovelyGrin) and discussions create a unique atmosphere that makes Grin special. The number of subscribers in social networks increased, except one of the Telegram chats. The more we know Grin, the more we like it. Stay crypto with Paradigm Fund!
“..looks like Igno forgot to pay the bill…” — @0xb100d
Development
- “Some links were broken, but now everything is fixed.”
Particular areas to focus on during testing:
- Sync a new chain from scratch
- Replace binary, using chain data from previous versions
- Sending between 2.1.0 wallets and older wallets?
- Sending/receiving between a 2.1.0 wallet and your exchange of choice (use small test amounts!)
- Wallet Developers — Using the V3 wallet API
- Wallet Developers — Ensure your existing code works as before with the 2.1.0 release
Binaries
Grin Wallet 2.1.0-beta.3 Binaries 13
Release Planning
Planning notes for the 2.1.0 release 6
Major changes and enhancements (Please note this information may change before release)
Node:
- Blocking IO (major changes to networking implementation)
- Improved handling of p2p connections (inbound and outbound peer connections)
- Implement batch verification of kernel signatures (50% performance increase)
- Kernel serialization optimization (and increased flexibility)
Further Details
Details for all node changes for the 2.1.0 release can be found here.
Wallet
- Addition of the V3 Owner API, (at /owner/v3) which includes lifecycle functions for creating wallets, as well as enhanced security between the server and clients. A full description of the new API can be found in the rustdoc documentation.
- Fixes to API secret handling, note the upgrade notice below
- Fixes to transactions not confirming when no change outputs exist
- Addition of the kernel excess field to the transaction log, to help with identifying transactions on the chain
Upgrade Notice
Wallet API Tokens
- Upon wallet creation, the wallet now creates 2 authentication tokens in the wallet directory: .api_secret and .owner_api_secret
- .api_secret is the secret shared with the node for wallet to node communication. Previous versions used this file for both node communication and Owner API authentication. This file should now only be used for the node secret and users should update files and paths in grin-wallet.toml accordingly
- .owner_api_secret is now used only to authenticate the Owner API.
- In grin-wallet.toml , api_secret_path corresponds to the Owner API secret file ( .owner_api_secret by default), while node_api_secret_path corresponds to the node secret file ( .api_secret by default)
- When running the Owner and Foreign APIs on the same port via the owner_api_include_foreign option in grin-wallet.toml , calls to the Foreign API no longer require the Owner API authentication secret.
Kernel Excess
- 2 fields are added to the TxLogEntry as found in the retrieve_txs and get_stored_tx functions:
- kernel_excess — Optional kernel excess (identifier) for the transaction
- kernel_lookup_min_height — The minimum height to begin scanning for a kernel excess value when attempting to retrieve it from the nod.
Further Details
Details on all wallet changes for the 2.1.0 release can be found here:
- #67: Building Grin — Covering Sep 30 — Oct 06 2019
Dev
- There are 101 open issues in /grin, and 31 open issues in /grin-wallet.
- Merged PRs: 10 in /grin | 5 in /grin-wallet | 4 unique contributors
- Grin v2.1.0-beta3 was released.
- grin-security is now up and running with canaries, keys, and audit information.
- In the last development meeting, planning and branching following v2.1.0 was covered, some discussion on the TOR proof of concept, and whether they should be storing the kernel excess for all transactions.
Governance
- The grin website has temporarily been moved to grin.mw whilst attempts are made to regain control of the previous domain. More details here.
- @lehnberg request for funding
RFCs
Draft
- Relative kernels [node-dev]
- Asynch Transacting via Relays [wallet-dev]
- Multiple named wallets [wallet-dev]
Open
- Online Transacting via TOR Hidden Services [wallet-dev]
Final Comment Period
-
Accepted
-
Closed
-
- #68: grin.mw — Covering Oct 07–13 2019
Dev
- There are 103 open issues in /grin, and 32 open issues in /grin-wallet.
- Merged PRs: 7 in /grin | 3 in /grin-wallet | 5 unique contributors
- grin-wallet v2.1.0-beta4 was released.
- The official v2.1.0 release of node and wallet is due this week.
- Grin’s security process was revamped.
- There’s been good progress on adding TOR support to the wallet.
Governance
- The last governance meeting approved lehnberg’s funding request, the transfer to grin.mw, and the new website design.
RFCs
Draft
- Relative kernels [node-dev]
- Asynch Transacting via Relays [wallet-dev]
- Multiple named wallets [wallet-dev]
Open
- Online Transacting via TOR Hidden Services [wallet-dev]
- Node API v2 [node-dev]
Final Comment Period
-
Accepted
-
Closed
-
- Website redesign
- Website
- Security (Audit, Security process)
- Grincon1
- RFC & Sub-teams update
- Decision: Approve lehnberg Request for Funding
- Testnet 4
- Security & Code audits
- DHT-style set up to replace IP-based tx building
- BetterHash mining protocol
BIP: https://github.com/TheBlueMatt/bips/blob/betterhash/bip-XXXX.mediawiki
If anyone cares enough it wouldn’t be a bad thing to have, mostly compatible with stratum
“Thought it was about time for a new one of these threads, seeing as how I’m now working under a new tranche of funds covering October to December.
It’s been a busy couple of weeks for me, anyhow, mostly with the large PR adding sending and listening functionality via TOR 14. I may have one or two more modifications to make, but I’ll hopefully have this merged into master over the next couple of days, along with a detailed post on how to use it. We’re hopeful that the usage of TOR can mitigate many of the problems we’ve seen with transaction exchange (particularly over HTTP,) and I’m looking forward to getting feedback on its use in the wild.
The other major topic has been the release and announcement of the (hopefully final) beta of 2.1.0 4. Other than a quick beta.4 of the wallet to address an unintended URL issue affecting exchanges, everything seems to be okay, and I believe we should be doing a final 2.1.0 release over the next week.
So all full steam ahead here and enjoying it. Thinking about planning for 3.0.0, on the wallet side anyhow we should include (and I’ll shortly be working on):
Continue to refine TOR functionality as described above
Better wallet state updates see conversation here 6
Interactive wallet713 style CLI mode
Including the upcoming discussion on release packaging 1, there’s plenty here to keep me occupied and out of trouble into the foreseeable future.”
Social encounters
- #67: Building Grin — Covering Sep 30 — Oct 06 2019
News
- SAVE THE DATE: grincon1 has been confirmed for November 22, same venue as last: c-base space station in Berlin. More info to follow.
- Daniel Lehnberg was on the ZK podcast talking to Anna and Fredrik about Grin and the 9 months post mainnet launch.
- David Burkett interviewed on GrinTalk.
- #68: grin.mw — Covering Oct 07–13 2019
News
- The grin website was permanently migrated to https://grin.mw (courtesy of @0xb100d) and with this also a new design (courtesy of @nijynot).
- Innosilicon recently announced delays to theplanned G32 ASICs. The first batch is now expected in January 2020.
- Chronos walkthrough of withdrawing Grin from exchanges using Niffler’s hedwig relay.
Upcoming events:
- Nov 22 2019, Berlin, DE: grincon1 (venue tbc) (Same amazing place as last year — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C-base Like everything in Grin entrance is free, bring your cypherpunk spirit. More details soon.)
Finance
Grin has no accounts and no addresses.
“On Oct 12, my funding from the previous campaign 6 will expire.
This is a request for an extension in order for me to continue to be able to support Grin with the type of contributions I’ve been doing over the past six months.
As part of this request, I’m proposing:
- The rate to be increased to a 1/4th of a Yeastunit, or $2,500/month. This, as the workload has been greater than originally anticipated.
- The time period to be reduced from 6 months to 3 months. This, to make the review check points more frequent in order to evaluate whether it makes sense for this to continue.”
Partnerships and team members
With regards to partnerships, they have no partnerships at the moment, and no foreseeable plans to establish any.
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.
