Incognito’s Q2 2023: Technical Roadmap

0xkumi · 20 March 2023 23:58

Let’s take a look at the progress our team has made this quarter and discuss the upcoming initiatives we have planned for the next quarter.

Conclusion of Q1 (Jan - Mar)

In this quarter, the following things have been completed:

Blocktime reduction (20s -> 15s)
Beacon Decentralization phase 1 - Enable Beacon Staking. You can find the instruction for Beacon staking here.
Interoperable liquidity pools.
Hardware wallet (great news, we’ve completed this development! However, we’re currently waiting for the Ledger team to review and approve our Nano App. Once that’s done, users will be able to enjoy the Incognito wallet extension with their hardware wallet. We appreciate your patience and we’ll keep you updated on any progress)
Masterless key import on Wallet Extension.
Privacy app store with new pApps such as pDAO, pOpenSea, …

Although we didn’t quite wrap up everything on our Q1 to-do list, there are a couple of exciting initiatives that we’re still working on, including supporting de-Google phones for the mobile app and enhancing the decision-making process for pDAO. Rest assured, we’re committed to finding the necessary resources and tackling these initiatives head-on in Q2.

Initiatives the team will be working on in Q2 (Apr - Jun)

Looking ahead to Q2, we’ve identified several areas where we plan to focus our efforts. These include:

Initiative	Description	Ship time
Beacon Decentralization phase 2 - Delegation	Enabling shard validators to vote for the most trusted beacon validators, based on their performance in building and validating beacon chain blocks. This will improve the overall security and performance of the network.	April
Web Wallet	Supporting a web wallet that will be directly accessible on our website. This will make it easier for new users to get onboarded without having to install a separate extension. Even better, our web wallet will also support hardware wallets for added convenience and security.	May
Universal bridge	Allowing for separation between the bridge validators and Incognito validators. With this generalized protocol in place, any team, community, or organization will be able to run their own bridge in a permissionless manner, which is a big step forward for decentralization. Moreover, it won’t depend on whether the external blockchain (such as Bitcoin or Ethereum) supports smart contracts, making it more accessible and flexible	June

Note: we will publish a detailed design for the Universal bridge soon. Documents for Beacon Decentralization protocol and Web Wallet could be found here and here respectively.

That’s what we have planned for now, but we always welcome input from the community. We’re committed to building solutions that truly meet your needs, so please don’t hesitate to share your thoughts and suggestions with us in the comments. Your feedback is invaluable, and we look forward to working together to make Incognito even better.

Thank you!

abduraman · 21 March 2023 08:07

I hope this resolves the need for trustless XMR bridge. Otherwise, XMR paranoiacs will never trust this project

CryptodroiD · 21 March 2023 11:52

Hello, thank you great job, a bridge to cosmos and being able to take advantage of their stacking would be interesting.

Linnovations · 21 March 2023 14:42

An excellent update @0xkumi, thanks for sharing with the community.

I am looking forward to seeing the Hardware Wallet App approved by Ledger so I can install it on my Ledger Nano X and try out the Web Wallet.

It was also nice to see that support for de-Googled phone is still on the list. This is very important for the Privacy conscious users (like myself).

FYI, I will be happy to test the beta of the de-google .APK file once it becomes available.

3prime · 22 March 2023 17:47

Any chance we can get support for the web extension added to Mozilla Firefox now that they have moved to ‘Manifest V3’ standard as of Firefox 109?

This was mentioned as a prerequisite back in the Q4 2022 Technical Roadmap notes: https://we.incognito.org/t/incognitos-q4-2022-technical-roadmap/19343

Would be nice to be able to eventually use this extension with the Tor browser…Or maybe the web wallet initiative will make this moot?

0xkumi · 29 March 2023 02:46

@abduraman & @CryptodroiD this design is intending openness that will enable either the Incognito team or external teams to build their innovative bridge protocol for a particular blockchain (say Bitcoin, Monero, Ethereum, …). And yes, the trustless XMR bridge is one of the things we will have to tackle, but it is not that easy due to Monero’s privacy nature and its open mutisig issue. Maybe a Bitcoin bridge on top of the new protocol is a good illustration for the community (and other teams) to see how they can build their own bridges for other blockchains. We will publish the design soon and feedback would be appreciated.

Same here @Linnovations . Will absolutely ping you for a beta user for that.

@3prime thank you for pointing that out, we are looking into it. Also, yes, the web wallet will probably be an easier way for browser compatibility compared to the wallet extension.

0xkumi · 29 March 2023 03:53

Regarding the Beacon Decentralization phase 2 - Delegation initiative, its protocol code has been published in the announcement. It will be implemented once there are at least 85% validators of the network running the new code.

Linnovations · 29 March 2023 16:33

Hey @Izlo, You’re a fan of Epic Cash, right?

In this latest updated roadmap from Incognito, there is mention of a “Universal bridge” coming in June 2023 timeframe.

This would be the way for the Epic Cash Devs to start allocating resources to work on a bridge from Epic’s blockchain to this decentralised Privacy focussed DEX.

I thought you may be interested to know.

pteracodex · 17 May 2023 17:51

I’ll be glad to have some options to get keys off of incognito to a cold wallet. However, the choice of Ledger seems a bit problematic. It’s not open-source, so basically we have to trust them that they are not screwing up. The fact that they’ve already had a significant data breach and the details of it are not good indications that trust is very warranted.

Please work on integration with open-source cold wallets.

Jared · 17 May 2023 21:05

The only one that I could find is Trezor wallet. Do you have any others in mind?

The dev team focused on Ledger wallet because many users were asking for it and due to the market adoption of their devices.

pteracodex · 18 May 2023 02:52

I’m no expert on anything - a real beginner. However, I’m surprised that many incognitos would be ledger fans. I would think the fact that it is not open-source is a huge negative that sb red flag even to ignoramus’s like me. Here’s a sample of what’s circulating on Ledger. It is by no means the only one.

Trezor seems to have made some questionable decisions as well.

so far, Jade and Coldcard seem to have some of the least number of complaints? in any case, a phone is always connected to a network or internet, so we HAVE to have some way to get our keys off to cold storage. I’m a novice but gosh, why would we want to keep the keys to our life’s savings in a place where it is easily exposed to attacks from cyber-criminals, when cold cards have been around for quite some time to minimize that problem?

thnx

Linnovations · 20 May 2023 14:42

Regarding Ledger Hardware Wallet Support

There has been a lot of FUD spread about Ledger Hardware wallets recently due to the recent news about a Recovery Service that are introducing. Please note this is an OPTIONAL service and is by no means mandatory.

Below is an excerpt from a trusted source that I have used for many years called “Collective Shift” (however you will need a login to view the entire article).

I thought I share a small excerpt to put some community members minds at ease.

An excerpt below…

Fear Not, Ledger Users

For those who own a Ledger hardware wallet, please know that your cryptocurrencies and seed phrases are safe. No immediate action is required. Ledger Recover is an optional service that does not impact your Ledger hardware wallet.

Today, a Ledger user’s seed phrase is stored inside their hardware wallet and on the piece of paper they (hopefully) wrote it on. When Ledger Recover launches, users will need to update their firmware in order to have the ability to opt-in to the service. Nothing about the device changes. The service is just a new functionality.

Technically, Ledger has always been able to deploy malicious firmware. However, doing so would destroy the company, annihilate shareholder value, and likely result in civil penalties. And even if it deployed malicious firmware, users would still need to approve an upgrade by entering their PIN.

Here is the link to the full article (sign up needed)

In Summary…
Yes, us Ledger Users will need to place some level of TRUST in Ledger the company. But just note, it is in their best interest NOT to release malicious firmware that would allow them or anyone access to our any devices seed phrases.

I will simply not update my Ledger device with the latest firmware that has this option until I find another solution that is better. But if there is enough pushback on by Ledger customers, they may rethink this service offering. Time will tell.

Just beware, there is a lot of FUD being spread.

I have not used any other 100% Open Source solutions as mentioned by @pteracodex such as - Jade or Coldcard. But from my limited knowledge on these, they ONLY support Bitcoin, not Ethereum. Hence these will not be compatible with Incognito’s Blockchain nor the many thousands of other ERC-20 tokens.

Thanks for sharing and let’s keep the discussion going.

slabb · 20 May 2023 16:54

These other solutions also don’t work for XMR as far as I can tell, correct?