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111 posts tagged with "hydra"

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· 2 min read
Sebastian Nagel

High-level summary​

Since last weekly update before christmas, the Hydra team worked on the technical specification, closed gaps in hydra-plutus scripts, made the unique headId available to Hydra clients through the API, allow the hydra-node to explicitly synchronize from genesis (if configured), and fixed smaller log and build issues reported by new users.

Besides this, a retrospective blog post was published by Matthias Benkort (CF) on Hydra, summarizing our progress made in 2022 also an outlook where Hydra is headed for in 2023. Also, the team had some first sessions on the voting project with Catalyst and the CF.

A full digest monthly digest for December 2022 can be found on the hydra website.

What did the team achieve this week​

  • Had some first sessions on the voting project with Catalyst and CF
  • Published retrospective blog post by Matthias Benkort (CF) on Hydra, summarizing our progress made in 2022 also an outlook where Hydra is headed for in 2023.
  • Worked on the LaTeX spec for HydraHeadV1, not final or published yet - latest version in this repository.
  • Add unique headId to API and hence make it available to clients.
  • Allow hydra-node to explicitly synchronize from genesis using --start-chain-from 0.
  • Closed gaps in hydra-plutus scripts
    • bounded transaction validity (ADR21)
    • enforcing contract continuity via state token in output
  • Fixed JSON for some logs and smaller build issues reported by new users.

What are the goals of next week​

  • Reach out to have hydra-tutorial integrated.
  • Plan the next couple of months.
  • Complete checking reimbursing of commits in head validator.
  • Align plutus scripts to spec and simplify them (identified some simplifications)
  • Improve mutation framework to be sure we fail tests for the right reasons
  • Complete the spec except the open points (<5) and also discuss them with researchers.

· 2 min read
Sebastian Nagel

High-level summary​

This week, the Hydra team kicked off a new project together with Catalyst, the Cardano Foundation and researchers from IO: a proof of concept for voting on Hydra. The concluded work on validating the Head protocol using model-based testing and formulated next steps, fixed the transaction cost benchmark reporting on the website and reduced the cost for commit transactions by ~30% with the help of reference scripts.

The year is coming to an end and velocity will slow down a bit while the team focuses on wrapping up loose ends. The updates here will pause until January 2023.

What did the team achieve this week​

  • Kicked-off Hydra Voting project with Catalyst, CF, and IO Research.
  • Reduce commit transaction costs by ~30% with reference scripts.
  • Prepared an RFP for external audit of the Hydra Head solution.
  • Fixed transaction cost benchmarks for abort tx #631.
  • Recorded decision to use model-based testing (ADR22) and improved Model documentation.
    • Concluding the first increment on “Validate coordinated Head protocol” #194.
    • Formulated next step / follow-up on testing the Soundness property of our protocol #656.
  • Switched to using nix flakes for development setup and CI build #646.

What are the goals of next week​

  • Push ADR21 & tx validity gap over the finish line (smoke tests missing).
  • Integrate the hydra-tutorial.
  • Have a LaTeX write-up of the HeadV1 (Coordinated Hydra Head) spec.
  • Close & recap on the year with another monthly report (+ blog post).

· 2 min read
Sebastian Nagel

High-level summary​

This week, the Hydra team has worked on completing to "Validate coordinated head protocol against formal model", this is a huge step to verify the implementation is secure. They also worked on implementing ADR21 related to bounded tx validity which is now under review. HydraPay project, from Obsidian Systems, is coming to an end of the first phase at least, so team did a review and submitted couple of issues they found in the process. The team had a meeting with the Director of CyberSecurity - topic was the RFP that is currently in flight that should scope the work of future auditors. Also, the team completed the hydra-tutorial review created by our colleague Thomas Vellecoop from the education team, and we are close to integrate it to our official site. From the development side, they have fixed a bug on the CI when running the benchmark jobs to calculate the cost of abortTx and a flaky spec which checks a plutus merkle-tree is always balanced.

What did the team achieve this week​

  • Document model based testing #194 & #641
  • Got ADR21, reducing gaps between implementation and specification, under review.
  • Complete review on hydra-tutorial.
  • Complete first round of review on HydraPay work #634
  • Meeting with Director of CyberSecurity frio IOG to unblock "the RFP prepared for the external audit" #606
  • Remove vasil-dev and testnet from smoke-test because they were not working #630
  • Fix flaky plutus-merkle-tree test #642
  • Refactor NetworkSpec to improve legilibility.
  • Fix benchmark cost for abortTx #631
  • Adapt nix.conf to the recent hydra-ci nix cache migration.

What are the goals of next week​

  • Get ADR21 accepted & close tx validity gap in our implementation.
  • Integrate the hydra-tutorial.
  • Have a LaTeX write-up of the HeadV1 (Coordinated Hydra Head) spec.
  • Get Cicero (new CI) working.
  • Use reference inputs to reduce the cost of the commitTx.

· One min read
Sebastian Nagel

High-level summary​

This week, the Hydra team has worked on cleaning up several things in progress after last week's summit. They have extended their model-based testing (MBT) approach with transaction creation & observation #410, solved AcquirePointTooOld problems of the hydra-node with by changing the wallet initialization #439. Also, the Hydra researchers updated the security proofs of the Coordinated Hydra Head, which are bound to be included in the Hydra HeadV1 specification.

What did the team achieve this week​

  • Monthly review & report - will also be published on our website #644
  • Extended the model-based testing (MBT) with transaction creation/observation #410
  • Solve AcquirePointTooOld problems with new wallet initialization #439
  • Fixed our hydraw deployments (EC2 instances)
  • Created & discussed ADR21 within tx validity work
  • Received & discussed security proofs of Coordinated Hydra Head (requires more work)

What are the goals of next week​

  • Get ADR21 accepted & close tx validity gap in our implementation
  • Complete review & integrate the Hydra tutorial
  • Review latest hydra-pay work
  • Have a LaTeX write-up of the HeadV1 (Coordinated Hydra Head) spec
  • Get Cicero (new CI) working

· One min read
Sebastian Nagel

High-level summary​

This week, the Hydra team attended the Cardano Summit in Lausanne, where Sebastian gave a presentation about Hydra and the whole team connected with the Cardano Community. After the public event, th Hydra team also conducted a workshop, which provided room for a retrospective, various planning sessions and they hacked together on different ideas.

What did the team achieve this week​

What are the goals of next week​

  • Monthly report & review meeting
  • Tie up several loose ends / branches.
  • Resolve Tx validity discussions & PRs.
  • Review cicero PR & try it out.