Dev Update February 23, 2026

News and Announcements
1

Dev Update - February 23, 2026

1. Last Week by the Numbers

neptune-core

  • Issues: 12 raised, 4 closed
  • Pull Requests: 2 opened, 3 merged
  • Commits: 19 merged into master

triton-vm

  • Pull Requests: 2 opened
  • Commits: 5 merged into master

twenty-first

  • Commits: 1 merged into master

2. Stand-up Summary

Ferdinand Sauer

  • Last Week: Implemented quotient segment randomization for Triton VM to improve ZK plausibility. Investigated persistent Wasm-32 compatibility issues, specifically addressing upstream dependency conflicts and CI failures in the verifier related to Merkle tree authentication.
  • Coming Week: Continue debugging Wasm-32 target pointer issues and CI breaks. Begin polishing documentation for quotient segment randomization.

Alan Szepieniec

  • Last Week: Developed and merged specialized tools for UTXO retrieval following bugs discovered in the consolidation mechanism. Conducted a technical review of the archival wallet construction and finalized the zero-knowledge argument parameters for padded table heights.
  • Coming Week: Collaborate with Thorkil on the exchange support API review and continue joint work on the quotient segment randomization technical note.

Thorkil Værge

  • Last Week: Finalized the archival wallet construction, achieving significant performance benchmarks (estimated speed-up of 200x to 2,000x for high-UTXO environments). Identified “loose ends” regarding wallet rescanning and state assumptions.
  • Coming Week: Execute a wallet migration to implement a new enum variant for monitored UTXO spent status. This migration aims to reduce wallet file sizes (e.g., from 570 MB down to ~2.3 MB). Conduct a comprehensive review of exchange integration support.

3. Technical Discussion

Quotient Segment Randomization & FRI/STIR

The team successfully implemented quotient segment randomization within Triton VM. This architectural shift ensures the VM is more “plausibly ZK.” A key outcome of this change is the adjustment of the minimum padded table height:

  • Following randomization, the height is now 1,024 for standard cases.
  • For FRI-conjectural instances, the minimum height remains 512.
    These updates represent an increase from the previous minimum of 256. While lower heights are theoretically possible, the current construction prioritizes stability and documentation over complex optimizations that yield diminishing returns.

Wasm-32 Compatibility Challenges

Triton VM, having recently achieved Wasm-32 compatibility, is experiencing mild troubles with this relatively niche target architecture. Recent CI failures in the STARK verifier suggest that assumptions regarding 32-bit usize may be violated during Merkle tree authentication. The team is investigating whether these are platform-specific pointer issues or underlying architectural assumptions that do not hold on 32-bit targets.

4. Updates and Announcements

  • Archival Wallet Release: A new version release is pending the resolution of current “loose threads” in the archival wallet migration. This update is expected to drastically improve Neptune Core performance for exchanges.
  • VXB Wallet Adoption: The VXB wallet is slated to become the recommended standard for upcoming listings.
  • DevOps: Future work includes hosting VXB binaries within the primary repository to meet source code guarantees and performing security audits on SQL input sanitation.
  • Exchange Integration: The team is currently auditing API endpoint coverage based on recent integration requests to ensure full compatibility for high-volume users.