We are thrilled to announce that Magic Grants has approved a research grant for Aram Jivanyan, Firo’s cryptographer, to undertake six months of curve tree research funded by the MAGIC Firo Fund. The primary objective is to enhance the privacy features of Lelantus Spark, further solidifying its position as a cutting-edge privacy protocol.
The MAGIC Firo Fund, generously donated by Arcadia’s contribution, has made this research grant possible. Prior to working with MAGIC Grants, Aram conducted preliminary work to evaluate the feasibility of this research direction. Encouraged by the initial analysis, he is confident that this project will significantly expand the anonymity sets within the final implementation of Lelantus Spark.
During the upcoming six months, the research will focus on the following key areas:
1) Exploring the most efficient approach to implement paired elliptic curves (such as secP256k1, secQ256k1, and other relevant curves). This involves developing a C++ implementation based on the existing curve implementation or considering bindings of the Rust implementation into our C++ library.
2) Integrating membership proofs with curve trees into the comprehensive design of Lelantus Spark, ensuring seamless interoperability with other Spark components.
3) Designing a bulletproof-based circuit for set membership checks and finalizing the implementation details.
4) Preparing a comprehensive research paper that summarizes all findings and design aspects, with a specific focus on scaling Lelantus Spark’s anonymity set using Curve Trees.
The outcome of this research is expected to address the primary challenge faced by Spark, namely, enabling anonymity sets in the millions. Moreover, the findings may have potential implications for other privacy cryptocurrency protocols like Monero’s Seraphis.
In addition to the Lelantus Spark research, the funding will support Aram’s ongoing work on the Aura voting protocol. This includes refining the paper, refining the implementation design and architecture, and enhancing the preprint for submission to esteemed crypto conferences.
We are grateful to MAGIC Grants and Arcadia for their generous support, which enables us to further push the boundaries of privacy and advance the field of cryptocurrency research. Stay tuned for exciting updates on the progress of this collaboration!
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