Last Week: Resolved circular reasoning in smart contract plugin architecture for standing swap orders by deciding to allow Coinbase transactions to accept inputs in the upcoming hard fork.
Coming Week: Distribute smart contract plugin and standing swap order code to the community for feedback.
Thorkil Værge
Last Week: Addressed block input scaling issues by planning hard fork changes to remove chunk dictionaries; implemented proof tree construction to enable parallel proof execution and solve TASM succinctness bottlenecks; evaluated chunk hash definitions for sliding window bloom filter Merkle Mountain Ranges; released Neptune Core v19 (resolving node stall/crash vulnerabilities and upgrading Triton VM performance); confirmed desktop wallet support for hard fork transactions.
Coming Week: Publish research updates on the development forum and release an updated desktop wallet featuring faster proving capabilities.
3. Technical Discussion
Coinbase Inputs & Smart Contract Plugins: Standing swap orders for future Neptune coins were previously unfeasible because Coinbase transactions could not accept inputs, requiring a complex bond-posting construction with a two-week withdrawal window. The team decided to enable Coinbase transactions to accept inputs in the upcoming hard fork, eliminating barriers in the smart contract plugin layer.
Hard Fork Planning & Input Scaling: Practical witness data limits are reached well before the explicit cap of 16,000 inputs per block. To target capacities between 5,000 and 10,000 inputs per block, the planned hard fork will remove chunk dictionaries from blocks, with ongoing discussion regarding whether replacement data will reside in optional or mandatory extra data blocks.
Succinctness & Proof Tree Execution: To address performance scaling issues in TASM succinctness code at higher input counts, proof tree construction is being deployed to prevent oversized proofs and enable parallel execution. The team also evaluated modifying chunk hash definitions for sliding window bloom filter Merkle Mountain Ranges, balancing Triton VM row proving complexity and block extra data size against live-network backward compatibility.
Neptune Core v19 & Triton VM Performance: Neptune Core v19 was released to fix networking vulnerabilities that allowed peers to stall or crash nodes. The release incorporates an upgraded Triton VM achieving up to a 6.7x speedup on 96-core Threadripper 7995WX hardware and up to 2x speedup on 16–24 hyperthread systems. The update is backward compatible, lowers RAM usage in the RAM-frugal path, and improves path selection to expand allowable per-block proof requirements.
4. Updates and Announcements
Neptune Core v19 Live: Neptune Core version 19 has been released, fixing networking security vulnerabilities and delivering significant Triton VM proving speedups.
Upcoming Desktop Wallet Update: A new desktop wallet release featuring faster proving capabilities will be published in a few days.
Upcoming Research Forum Posts: Thorkil Værge will publish detailed posts on the development forum outlining recent research progress.