Last Month at QRL - April 2023

A substantial amount of effort has been invested in Zond (our forthcoming Proof-of-Stake/smart contract upgrade). Areas touched include the consensus engine, validator client, chrome extension, and other tools, improving the system’s overall efficiency, security, and developer friendliness

technical

12th May 2023

Highlights

Zond Development update

In March, we saw a lot of work go into qrypto.js and the cryptography portions of Zond, including the latest Dilithum5 library working on the node and browser. Since then, lots of work has gone into the consensus engine, validator client, chrome extension, and tooling.

Consensus Engine

One of the candidates for the NIST post-quantum cryptography project is the Dilithium5 cryptography standard. It is a digital signature scheme based on the difficulty of locating short vectors in lattices. It provides high security against both classical and quantum attacks. We have modernised the signature, public key, and random reveal size in our system to support this standard. This will improve the system’s overall effectiveness as well as its level of safety.

We’ve also updated the grpc gateway library to generate.pb.go files for grpc-based servers and clients. These files contain code that can be used to generate code for various programming languages that can communicate with the grpc service. This will improve the interoperability and flexibility of our system. A further set of modifications to the consensus protocol, which is the mechanism that ensures all nodes in the network agree on the same system state, are currently under development by our team as well. The performance, scalability, and robustness of our protocol are all areas in which we want to see improvements.

Tooling

Several changes and updates have been made to the tooling around Zond.

Changes to the Remix IDE to make it compatible with the Zond Chrome Extension wallet to support contract deployment from the Chrome Extension Wallet and Remix IDE are in progress. Right now the Zond Chrome Extension Wallet works with the modified Remix IDE.
The CLI to generate genesis block and the required number of validators using Dilithium cryptography for staking have been made

This required refactoring of not just the chrome-extension, but web3.js and qrypto.js to commonJS.

Validator client

A standalone validator client that is capable of supporting staking with the dilithium5 public key is currently under development. The validator client can now send attest transactions, create blocks, and detect the staking balance that has been deposited on the staking contract. In addition, there have been adjustments made to the Validator client API.

Other Development Updates

Progressive Web App (PWA)

Work on a progressive web app (PWA) wallet secure storage module. This will provide us with an alternative method of using a wallet on a mobile device.

Quantum News

Cryptographers bet cash on when quantum computers will beat encryption

On 2023-04-30: It is thought that quantum computers will eventually be able to crack the encryption methods we use today, but exactly when this will happen is an open question. Now, one cryptographer has started a betting pool. - newscientist

India gives itself a mission to develop a 1000-qubit quantum computer in just eight years

On 2023-04-20: India's government has signed off on a ₹6003.65 crore ($730 million) plan to make the nation a quantum computing and communications power by the year 2031. - theregister

Physicists take step toward fault-tolerant quantum computing

On 2023-04-20: Cornell researchers have recently taken a step toward fault-tolerant quantum computing: they constructed a simple model containing exotic particles called non-Abelian anyons, compact and practical enough to run on modern quantum hardware. Realizing these particles, which can only exist in two dimensions, is a move towards implementing it in the real world.

Eun-Ah Kim, professor of physics (A&S), “With this 10-qubit system, we were able to encode multiple non-Abelian anyons, and therefore multiple logical information-carrying qubits, and a precise recipe for what the experimentalists need to do every step of the way.” - cornell

Prosperity at Risk: The Quantum Computer Threat to the US Financial System

On 2023-04-03: Due to the deep interconnectivity of the financial sector and the vulnerability of equity and credit markets, the US financial system is at risk of a quantum-enabled cyberattack. The consequences of such an attack could be catastrophic for the US and global economy, potentially surpassing the impact of the 2008 financial crisis or the Great Depression. - hudson.org