Ecosystem Update

2/22/22

General Announcements

Aleo published an in-depth retrospective blog post outlining the general successes and challenges observed throughout the incentivized testnet.
- Blog Post https://bit.ly/AleoTestnet
- We ask participants who know the IP address and time miner was running to share this information. Although NOT necessary to claim rewards, it helps us distinguish between participants who followed the rules and those who didn’t. There will be detailed instructions closer to mainnet launch on how to claim rewards based on completion of KYC and proof of address ownership that mined a block/blocks.
Aleo's Head of Education, Errol Drummond, published a video explaining how cryptographers can prove anything using Rank-1 Constraint Systems.
- https://bit.ly/AleoCryptographers

Core Engineering Updates

Merges:
- snarkVM
  - https://github.com/AleoHQ/snarkVM/pull/666 - adds batch addition for variable MSMs on BLS12-377. The technique used allows variable MSMs on short Weierstrass curves to exhibit a 20% performance improvements across all sizes (@howardwu)
  - https://github.com/AleoHQ/snarkVM/pull/664 - reduces the maximum number of non-zero entries in the BHP gadget significantly (@howardwu)
  - https://github.com/AleoHQ/snarkVM/pull/663 - fix dpc wasm compatibility (@amousa11)
- snarkOS
  - https://github.com/AleoHQ/snarkOS/pull/1635 - partially closes Log RPC request to terminal (#1628) (@ljedrz)
  - https://github.com/AleoHQ/snarkOS/pull/1630 - fix handshake disconnect (@ljedrz)
  - https://github.com/AleoHQ/snarkOS/pull/1629 - updates dependencies, fixes clippy warnings, adds CI helper (@howardwu)
In-Progress
- snarkVM
  - https://github.com/AleoHQ/snarkVM/pull/667 - removes the Aleo byte denomination and updates gate to the base unit (@raychu86)
  - https://github.com/AleoHQ/snarkVM/pull/661 - Change many uses of zip to zip_eq which enforces that the lengths of the zipped iterators are equal (@pratyush)
  - https://github.com/AleoHQ/snarkVM/pull/660 - Ensures that coefficients are always sorted in the appropriate order (@pratyush)
  - https://github.com/AleoHQ/snarkVM/pull/654 - handles the merge conflicts between #636 and #646 (@raychu86)
- snarkOS:
  - https://github.com/AleoHQ/snarkOS/pull/1642 - Fix edge case handling of legder case 2cba (@HarukaMa)
  - https://github.com/AleoHQ/snarkOS/pull/1641 - Faster storage tests and benchmarks (@ljedrz)

Community Announcements

Universal and Outer NFTs to be transferred by the end of the month
- Inner setup contributor instructions TBA
Community Grants Program and Ambassador Program are still undergoing construction. An updated format will be revealed to the community once they are complete.
There will be a Community Office Hours this Thursday from 1pm to 2pm ET. The topic is still being decided. You can find the info for joining here.
ETHDenver 2022
- Aleo participated in ETH Denver as a sponsor. With our recent $200m fundraise now common knowledge, there was a huge amount of new interest both generally from the crypto community and from existing projects in the space. Developers were excited to learn about how our tools will allow them to add ZK to their products. Thanks to everyone who came to say hi at our booth!
- Watch Alex Pruden, COO, discuss how to get started with Aleo at ETHDenver.
  - https://bit.ly/ETHDenverAleo
- We also funded two Bounties as part of the ETH Denver Bounty Program, a Wallet, and an analytics tool. The contest for the wallet occurred on-site in Denver and was judged by Errol, Sam, and Anthony.
  - It was a close decision but in the end, we awarded First Prize of $5000 to Piotr Rosłaniec & Andrew Siah for their amazing implementation of Aleo Keys within Metamask using Metamask Snaps, and a corresponding example Web App to demonstrate functionality. Piotr (of NuCypher) even reached out to Metamask and got WASM support explicitly for this project which makes Aleo the first (of many) to be implemented in this manner! You can check it out for yourself here: https://hackerlink.io/buidl/2119
  - We awarded Second prize of $2500 to AngelDao for a totally native browser extension wallet. What specifically stood out was how well the GUI they designed matched our brand aesthetic. Check it out here.
  - Both teams expressed the intention to stick with their respective wallet projects going into the future as more features get switched on for our ecosystem!
- The Bounty for the Analytics tool is still open to competitors right now! If you think you have what it takes, head to our bounty page to get started!
Last, and most exciting of all, during the event, we took the first steps in what is gearing up to be the single largest and most collaborative research funding enterprise in the history of crypto. Subscribe to our newsletter to receive updates on the event!