Dev Update 2026-01-19

News and Announcements
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1. Last Week by the Numbers

neptune-core

  • Issues: 1 raised
  • Pull Requests: 1 opened, 2 merged

triton-vm

  • Issues: 1 raised, 1 closed
  • Pull Requests: 1 merged

twenty-first

  • Pull Requests: 1 merged

2. Stand-up Summary

Ferdinand Sauer

  • Last Week: Resumed work on the STIR pull request and continued the transition of Triton VM to Web Assembly. Conducted a review of the Triton VM GPU prover and enabled WASM testing for the twenty-first library, which successfully identified one bug.
  • Coming Week: Plans to focus on Triton VM performance optimizations in collaboration with Thorkil.

Alan Szepieniec

  • Last Week: Completed technical reviews for proof of reserves/payment and the STIR pull request (confirming soundness). Progressed the libP2P integration, successfully running the legacy TCP stack alongside the new libP2P stack.
  • Coming Week: Will focus on debugging the gateway subprotocol within libP2P.

Thorkil Værge

  • Last Week: Introduced UTXO index v2, reducing index size from 700MB to 21MB. Improved wallet request performance by utilizing the archival mutator set for spent-status checks and implemented support for opposite lookups to benefit light clients.
  • Coming Week: Continuing work on mempool endpoints and refinement of the UTXO indexing architecture.

Softly

  • Last Week: Focused on UTXO indexing cleanup and GPU performance benchmarking. Achieved a 41-second composing time on dual 6000 Pro GPUs. Investigated address compression techniques to meet external exchange requirements.
  • Coming Week: Working on distributing upgrading tasks across multi-GPU setups (up to 8 GPUs) to increase throughput.

3. Technical Discussion

STIR and FRI Progress

The team continues to prioritize the STIR implementation. Reviews conducted last week confirmed that the STIR pull request is sound and maintains necessary security properties, with minor adjustments identified for zero-knowledge consistency.

UTXO Indexing v2

A significant architectural milestone was reached with the UTXO index v2. By removing an indirection layer and adopting the block index database template, the footprint was reduced by over 95%. This update also enables “opposite lookups,” allowing wallets to query blocks for specific announcement flags—a critical feature for efficient light client synchronization.

Address Size Constraints

A technical challenge was identified regarding the 255-character limit required by certain external platforms. Standard Neptune addresses (currently ~3,400 characters) were compressed to 800 characters, which remains above the limit. Two primary paths are under discussion:

  1. Out-of-band Announcements: Sending only a commitment (Tip5 hash) on-chain, requiring the recipient to have the pre-image to claim funds.
  2. Non-Post-Quantum Schemes: A temporary alternative that would offer smaller address sizes at the cost of post-quantum privacy.

4. Updates and Announcements

  • GPU Performance: Initial benchmarks suggest H200 GPUs may bring composing times under 30 seconds.
  • WASM Support: Testing for the twenty-first library is now active for Web Assembly environments.
  • LibP2P Integration: The transition to libP2P is moving into the debugging phase for gateway subprotocols.
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