Midsummer has come and gone, the days are only getting shorter from here on out. Make the most of the long evenings whilst they last if you’re in the northern hemisphere, and if you’re in the other hemisphere it’s time to start singing to the sun gods.

Progress Since Last Update

Last time we shipped an update we were deep in the middle of working out why memory consumption during our keygen ceremonies was… significant to say the least. We tracked the issue down to some serialisation within the JSONRPC, which was allocating 60x(!) the amount of memory vs the size of the data being (de)serialised. Insanity. We’ve identified a solution is to use IPC as a method of connection between our two components, and are diligently working on the implementation.

Some more highlights from the last fortnight.

• Ethereum fee oracle is complete
• Correct payouts to backup Validators
• Finalised ETH → State Chain governance process
• P2P multiplexing for multiple ceremony protocols
• Broadcast retry attempts capped per block

We also received the audit report for our smart contracts. There was very little of significance in the findings. A few optimisations and some naming suggestions which we have already implemented. Overall a good result, we’re happy that the contracts are in a good place now.

Goals for the Next Fortnight

Some quick bullet points detailing the major milestones that we hope to achieve by the time the next dev update rolls around.

Development Goals

• Merge simplified auction mechanics
• Merge equivocation slashing
• Resolve weird nonce-use race condition between CFE & CLI
• Begin testing our first Paradise release candidate

General Thoughts

Lots of old and new friends in town this week for Polkadot Decoded, seems like the Parachain ecosystem is thriving. Interested to see where it all goes over the next few years.

Until next time.

Tom