Week in Mina News #19
Oct 6, 2024 - Stay Updated with the Latest from Mina: Protocol Updates, Developer News, and Community Highlights
This newsletter helps the Mina community stay updated on the latest protocol changes, developer news, ecosystem developments, community activities, and key metrics. If you have news to share in this newsletter, please reach out to us here.
Better together! - Astromina Tea
🖼️ Ecosystem News
Illuminate - September Town Hall
The Illuminate - September Town Hall discussed key topics such as Mina's Asia tour, updates on the Rust Node, Core Grants progress, advancements from Geometry Research and Lumina, and highlights from the Navigator programs. Governance improvements were introduced, particularly around the MIP Upgrade. Other areas covered included zkML progress, zkApp development, and Mina’s integration with Celestia for data availability. You can watch the full record here.
Key Updates and Mainnet Launch Plans for LuminaDEX
At the Illuminate - September Town Hall, LuminaDEX Senior Protocol Engineer Eddy shared the latest updates and upcoming plans for Lumina.
Recent progress includes the development of a factory system for creating unique token pools, a liquidity pool with MINA/fungible token pairs, and the completion of liquidity workflows, including adding, swapping, and removing liquidity.
What's next: community beta testing on Mina L1 and Zeko L2, incentivized front-ends using the SDK, audit completion, and mainnet launch.
Geometry Research Shares Updates on Mina-Celestia Integration
Andrea from Geometry Research, shared updates during the Illuminate - September Town Hall on the ongoing Mina-Celestia integration. The team is working to ensure Mina zkApps have access to Celestia's data availability layer before updating their state.
Here are the key points from the presentation:
Mina apps have limited state but require data before updating.
Celestia provides data availability for zkApps.
Verification ensures transactions are published as blobs on Celestia.
Implementation of Plonk and Groth verifiers over the BN254 curve.
The team is developing modules for pairing verification, building on their recent paper "On Proving Pairings."
A recursion binary tree compiler is being built to handle long zk circuits.
o1 Labs Ranked #10 in Talent Titans Top 100
o1 Labs has been ranked #10 in the Talent Titans Top 100 Web3 employers. This recognition was based on nominations, community feedback, expert reviews, and a rigorous multi-stage process. The team expressed their gratitude to both the community and Calyptus Web3 for the acknowledgment.
You can find the full list here.
Rust Node Testing: Insights and Feedback
Mina Foundation engineer, Lucas shared insights from 10 node operators on the Rust Node journey, covering key areas like starting, running, and improving nodes. The community is invited to review these insights and provide feedback through a short survey. Those interested can join the Rust Node testing program for updates.
You can find more details here.
Mina as a Lab for Participation: Governance Insights
The third blog post in Mina’s governance series explores how collective intelligence can enhance decision-making. It highlights how groups can tackle complex problems more efficiently than individuals, offering insights into organizing large-scale participatory governance in the Mina ecosystem. The blog is part of a broader effort to make Mina a model for decentralized participation.
You can find the full blog post here.
ZkNoid SDK Revamp: Modular Design and Improved Performance
The ZkNoid SDK has been updated with a modular design aimed at enhancing performance and usability. You can find detailed information about the improvements and the migration guide in their article.
ZkNoid’s Upcoming Game 'Guess Who?
ZkNoid has shared details about their upcoming game, “Guess Who?”, which will be released soon on the ZkNoid Game Store. This classic 2-player game, now enhanced with zk-technology, promises a provably fair gaming experience.
Details here.
ZkNoid Announces Integration with Pallad Wallet
On September 30th, ZkNoid announced a strategic partnership with Pallad Wallet. Users can now access ZkNoid's entire collection of zkGames through the Pallad wallet, delivering a fast and secure gaming experience directly in their browser.
o(1) Labs Welcomes New Engineering Team Lead for Cryptography
Marc, with a PhD in cryptography and extensive experience in applied zk-SNARKs from Nomadic Labs, has joined o1 Labs as the new Engineering Team Lead for Cryptography. With a focus on driving zk-SNARK innovation, Marc is set to lead advancements in zero-knowledge proofs, helping unlock new potential in the field. His specialized expertise will play a key role in pushing zk-SNARK development forward at o1 Labs.
Governance Updates
This week's updates from Mina's governance hub include several key initiatives and progress reports. The MIP Upgrade continues to evolve, focusing on improvements to Mina's governance process, and a community call is scheduled for October 9th. The Mina Ecosystem Funding (MEF) trial run has completed, with insights gathered for future enhancements. Additionally, research blog posts on governance are being developed to foster more direct participation in decision-making. The Protocol Governance Toolkit (PGT) is progressing, with tools like LeaderBot, SurveyBot, and GovBot undergoing updates to support governance initiatives.
For more detailed information on each workstream, you can visit here.
Growth Programs
CORE
NFT Standard: Development is underway in collaboration with DFST from minanft.io, aiming to introduce an ERC-721-like NFT standard for Mina.
Private Credential Standard: Granted to zkSecurity, this project focuses on secure proof generation.
ZK Passport: Piconbello is working on scanning passport data using zk technology.
Wallet Provider API: A grant awarded to Pallad to define interactions between wallets and zkApps on Mina.
Tokenomics Research: Ongoing research into Mina’s tokenomics structure.
Celestia Data Availability (DA) Integration: A project is under review to integrate DA verification from Celestia to enhance zkApp functionality.
ZK Machine Learning (ZKML): Progress continues on converting ONNX models into zk circuits for integration into Mina’s ecosystem.
Navigators
Growth Track Update
Three new proposals have been funded:Zeropoll: A private voting system using zero-knowledge proofs.
A Formalization and TypeScript API for P2P State Channels on Mina Protocol.
TileVille Development.
Out of 57 total submissions, 19 proposals have been funded, 9 are under review, and 5 were rejected.
📌 Mina Community Bulletin Board
This section features posts from the community and projects. You can submit yours here.
X Posts
Post by “@BlockchainYtu”:
https://x.com/BlockchainYtu/status/1839356742108668373
Post by “@Cryptophileee”:
https://x.com/Cryptophileee/status/1840669395389137181
Blog Posts
Mina Protocol: A Light Path For Scalable Blockchains
The Evolution of Oracles: From On-Chain to Zero-Knowledge Proofs (zkOracles)
🎟️ Events
Upcoming Events
Kurt Hemecker at Token For Good Summit
On October 15, 2024, Mina Foundation CEO Kurt Hemecker will speak at the Token For Good Summit in Geneva. He'll discuss "ZK for Good: Enhancing Social Impact with Mina Protocol," exploring blockchain's role in addressing societal challenges.
You can find the details here.
Last Week’s Events
Evan Shapiro Featured on Globe Exchange
Evan Shapiro, co-founder of Mina Protocol, was a guest on Globe Exchange's Founder Focus series. In this episode, Evan discusses zero-knowledge proofs (ZKPs), recent updates from Mina, and what lies ahead on Mina's roadmap.
You can find the full video here.
ZK As A Protocol
Yunus Gurlek and Will Cove from Mina Foundation joined a conversation on ZKV's Space, discussing the development of a private, censorship-resistant voting app powered by ZK technology on Mina Protocol.
You can find the record here
💼 Open Jobs
No new job listings from the community this week. If you have any job updates or offers, please share them here.
👓 Statistics and Metrics
Key Metrics from Last Week:
Total Amount Transferred (daily average): 25,6M MINA
Unique Snark Workers (daily average): 8
Snarks Included (daily average): 8,704
Transactions (daily average): 8,081
CryptoMiso Commit Stats: Mina secured 3nd place over the past 12 months with 4,151 commits and +100 contributors. More details here.