R&D - ChainSafe

R&D

A collection of 20 posts

What Could Go Wrong?

What Could Go Wrong?

Sequencers are vital for Layer 2 rollups on Ethereum and beyond, but face risks from bugs, censorship, and stalls. Exploring modular sequencing can unlock safer, more scalable blockchain networks.

What L2s need from Based Rollups

What L2s need from Based Rollups

Some unstructured thoughts on what Ethereum needs to focus on to accelerate the L2 roadmap

On Token Vesting

On Token Vesting

Token vesting in Web3 controls token release to prevent mass sell-offs, protecting price stability. Learn what it is, how it works, and why strategies like randomized vesting could improve market health and protocol governance.

(Yet another) Circle STARK tutorial

(Yet another) Circle STARK tutorial

Dive into the intricacies of Circle STARKs, their efficiency over Mersenne 31 prime, and the challenges of FFT/FRI compatibility.

Understanding GKR

Understanding GKR

Cryptographic commitments often bottleneck SNARKs. Circle STARKs and Binius reduce costs but add new challenges. GKR offers another path, cutting overhead by almost avoiding commitments entirely.

Investigating a Zcash Web Wallet

Investigating a Zcash Web Wallet

ChainSafe R&D has been investigating the feasibility of a Zcash web wallet. Such a wallet would allow easy onboarding to Zcash. It is also the first step in building a browser extension wallet or a MetaMask snap.

Forks Aren't Always Safe

Forks Aren't Always Safe

Forking open-source smart contracts is risky. Developers often inherit existing bugs or create new ones through modifications, leading to major exploits like those seen with Grim Finance and Meter. Transparency, collaboration, and auditing new logic are crucial to prevent costly vulnerabilities.

Improving Web3 UX: Deferred Transaction Inclusion

Improving Web3 UX: Deferred Transaction Inclusion

Waiting for transaction inclusion doesn't have to mean, halt and wait. Let's set the stage a bit... I'm a liquidity provider (LP) for a DeFi protocol and receive LP tokens. I can stake those LP tokens and receive bonus rewards ("farming"), which is highly appealing and a common practice in

Onchain Dispute Games: Past, Present and Future

Onchain Dispute Games: Past, Present and Future

Blockchains use dispute games to efficiently verify computations. Instead of costly on-chain execution, a statement is accepted unless challenged. Protocols like one-step fraud proofs and bisection games resolve disputes, saving resources by only performing full verification when necessary.

Transaction fee mechanism design

Transaction fee mechanism design

For a sustainable decentralized ecosystem, it is essential to align incentives. This prevents the system from favouring one actor too much.

Security for the paranoid

Security for the paranoid

People are prone to making mistakes, but rarely do they make a royal one. When it comes to protecting your digital assets, however much, there is nothing more important.

Intro to social choice theorems

Intro to social choice theorems

Before designing governance for DAOs, understand that onchain voting is a useful tool. However, it does not fix the main problems in social choice theory.

Developer's guide: application-specific elliptic curves

Developer's guide: application-specific elliptic curves

This post discusses different methods of constructing elliptic curves. It also covers some potential applications and practical considerations for developing curves for specific uses.

Building a Polywrap SDK Wrapper for Substrate and Polkadot

Building a Polywrap SDK Wrapper for Substrate and Polkadot

Authored by Colin Adams Last year, ChainSafe received a co-sponsored grant from Polywrap and the Web3 Foundation to develop a Substrate "wrapper." That is, a universal SDK powered by Polywrap's technology that aims to significantly improve the experience of building on Polkadot and Substrate. Background Polywrap is the technology behind

Elliptic curves cheat sheet

Elliptic curves cheat sheet

This cheat sheet provides a brief overview of the parameters that define an elliptic curve and offers a somewhat opinionated classification of existing elliptic curves.

Bringing Privacy To ENS: ChainSafe’s Proposed Integration Using Aztec Network

Bringing Privacy To ENS: ChainSafe’s Proposed Integration Using Aztec Network

Authored by Jagrut Kosti ChainSafe Solutions is ChainSafe's internal applied research and development division. We combine our skill sets, knowledge, and constant research to deliver new perspectives, solve complex problems, and help the community drive innovations forward. The following blog post details our privacy proposal presented at the Ethereum Name

Introducing Post-quantum Security to Signatures on Substrate

Introducing Post-quantum Security to Signatures on Substrate

ChainSafe worked with xx Network to bring post-quantum security to Substrate chains, developing a Rust W-OTS+ library, Substrate pallet, and Placard generation for quantum-resistant, privacy-focused blockchain tech.

Multi-Party Computation: The next generation of crypto security

Multi-Party Computation: The next generation of crypto security

Multi-party computation enables multiple parties to carry out a distributed computation of their secret inputs without revealing anything but the output.

Introducing Post-quantum Security to Signatures on Substrate

Introducing Post-quantum Security to Signatures on Substrate

Authored by Elizabeth ChainSafe is proud to announce the completion of a collaboration with xx network, one of the world's first quantum-resistant and privacy-focused blockchain ecosystems. A few months back, xx network enlisted our help to **** implement Winternitz One Time Signatures (W-OTS+) for Substrate-based chains and automated Placards generation. The

xx Network: Sprint Toward Mainnet

xx Network: Sprint Toward Mainnet

ChainSafe R&D partnered with xx Network on a 5-week sprint to mainnet, bringing Substrate expertise, code reviews, and tests to strengthen its privacy-focused blockchain and cMix mixnet.