Penumbra Community Call Notes - December 19, 2024

General
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Final community call of 2024! See you next year ;). Here’s the recording, and below are the notes!

Major Updates

Upcoming Chain Upgrade

  • Forum post detailing the proposal

  • Scheduled for 4 hours after the call [ETA this happened!!]

  • Introduces transparent (T) addresses to work around Noble USDC integration issue

  • Key details about T addresses:

  • Format: “tpenumbra1” followed by 32 bytes of binary data

  • Compatible with standard Cosmos address format

  • Funds deposit directly into shielded pool

  • One T address per Penumbra account (vs multiple addresses normally)

  • Maintains strong privacy guarantees despite “transparent” name

Upgrade Process Details

  • Proposal submitted earlier this week, expected to pass [ETA: it did, and we’re back!]

  • Nodes will halt and shut down after proposal passes

  • Validator operators must choose to upgrade to new software

  • Security benefit: Governance serves as coordination mechanism rather than automatic deployment

  • Requirements:

    • Validators need newest PD version (0.81.0)

    • Must run PD migrate command with correct flags

    • Both --home and --comet-home flags recommended for migration command

Development Updates & Future Plans for 2025

Near-term Releases

  • New DEX frontend in development

  • Similar UX to centralized exchanges

  • Will expose advanced features like routing, limit orders, passive liquidity

  • Alpha version coming soon to beta tester channel

Mobile Development

  • Prax Wallet coming to mobile

  • Ultra light node being adapted for phone environment

  • Expected better performance than web version due to fewer platform restrictions

Future Initiatives

  • Exploring TEE (Trusted Execution Environment) integration for improved web experience

  • Could offer faster proving times (700ms vs 10s of seconds)

  • Would be opt-in feature

  • Focus on improving user experience and interfaces

  • Continued development as inter-chain privacy layer

Community Discussion

  • Observed increased engagement with governance proposals

  • Discussion of NFT minting use case highlighting Penumbra’s privacy benefits

  • Exploration of privacy needs in NFT space

  • Product strategy discussion focusing on “single player mode” utility

Upcoming Events

  • No community call next week (holiday break)

  • Next call scheduled for January 2nd

  • ETHDenver attendance planned

Action Items

  • Validators to prepare for upgrade

  • Monitor upgrade completion

  • Beta testers to watch for DEX frontend alpha release

Notes

The core protocol is considered largely complete, with current focus on user experience improvements and client-side features.

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