March 2023: Bringing enhanced privacy to over half a million validators worldwide
Dear friends, backers,?comrades, critics, and fans,
The focus of our work this month has been engaging the ecosystems! As you all probably know, Nym provides a privacy layer for all internet traffic and this includes any blockchain. It is therefore our pleasure to say that we are increasingly providing privacy solutions to the Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Cosmos ecosystems.
→ Bitcoin and mixnets have a deep shared history, so we are proud to be providing privacy to the Bitcoin ecosystem, most recently integrating Blockstream Green into?NymConnect. In our recent blog post you can learn?how mixnet technology was core to the invention of the Bitcoin consensus protocol!?
→ For the Ethereum ecosystem we have started an exciting new partnership with ChainSafe to privacy-enhance Ethereum consensus clients, with Harry Halpin presenting the Nym mixnet at ETH Denver this week.
→ For the Cosmos ecosystem, DevRel Max Hampshire was in Barcelona demoing a service provider for Cosmos chains to connect to the mixnet (coming soon on the?dev portal)! And this very minute, Nym CTO Dave is in Denver where he will be introducing Nyx, the Cosmos SDK blockchain that powers the Nym mixnet.?
Nym has one mission and that is to enable digital privacy for all humanity. Through partnerships and collaborations with some of the best in the space, we are on the path to achieving this, one chain, wallet, and app at a time.
The Nym core team.
Highlights from the past month...
The past month was a busy one for the Nym core team with tech updates, events, community highlights, new joiners, and appearance in the media. Here is a snapshot of what has gone on:
Tech
You can always check the Nym?Platform,?NymConnect?and?Wallet?changelogs for the complete list of fixes and new features in our weekly releases. Here is a summary of what has been accomplished by the dev team over the past month.
NymConnect now supports Blockstream Green
We are supporting Blockstream by adding the?Blockstream Green Bitcoin wallet?to?Nym Connect?due to its?Liquid’s privacy features. The Nym mixnet has a shared history with Bitcoin and it is not a surprise that we want Bitcoiners to have the best privacy possible. Read?more here.
More for NymConnect
NymConnect now works with multiple applications at a time and over the month we have made a few more improvements: the UI is more simple and slick as there is no longer the need to select each application, and most details are now in the settings, a health-checker has been added for better reliability, and NymConnect now allows users to select their own gateway or service provider.?
We have also been experimenting with a mobile version of NymConnect which we are hoping to be able to release for Android devices soon.
Core developments
We have built a Nym client directly into the Network Requester eliminating the need to run two separate processes. What that means is that Nym service providers will now have to run only one binary instead of two.
Helios
We have added Nym mixnet support to a fork of a16z’s Helios Ethereum client. This will allow privacy-enhanced Ethereum transactions via the Nym mixnet.
Research
The research team has three interns joining who will work on three major topics:
Resources
Launch of Nym developer portal
We have launched a new developer portal for smoother onboarding. Whether you are a seasoned developer or just getting started, our DevRel team has put together all that you need.?
Access the portal?here.
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Partnerships
Nym and Chainsafe bring enhanced privacy to over half a million Ethereum validators worldwide
We announced a Nym integration with Ethereum validators and even clients to provide network-level privacy to the entire eco-system. A libp2p module will enable over half a million validators worldwide to run privacy-enhanced validators via the Nym mixnet, so they are no longer leaking IP addresses and other metadata, effectively protecting them from DDoS attacks that could disrupt the entire core consensus algorithm of Ethereum. This module is developed in collaboration with?Chainsafe, a leading blockchain development and engineering solutions firm.
In the media
"The law does not require a bank account when creating a company," explains Alexis Roussel, COO at Nym Technologies. "It is quite possible to bring goods in kind instead of euros, which is the case with bitcoin". Read article?here.
“You look at some of the texts from the eighties and nineties and you're talking about how this infrastructure is going to turn into a vehicle for mass surveillance. And that's pretty much exactly what happened. So that's why I'm working with them today, not, but also because I actually think that privacy is one of those topics that strikes at the heart of a lot of the problems that we see on the Internet today.” - Jaya Brekke. Listen to the entire episode?here.
Community
UPA ETH Denver Twitter space
Our General Counsel Ahmed Ghappour joined Electric Coin Co., Orchid Protocol, and Manta Network on a UPA Twitter space leading up to ETH Denver and the privacy summit. Listen to the Twitter space?here. Tokeneconomics deep-dive for our Spanish-speaking community
Nym Chief Scientist Claudia Diaz gave a Nym tokenecon deep-dive to our Spanish-speaking community about the economic model at the heart of Nym, and how it ensures privacy, quality of service and scalability across the Nym mixnet. A Spanish-language Nym tokeneconomics paper will be launched shortly.
First Nym Mexico meetup
The first Nym meetup in Mexico was held in the city of Guadalajara in conjunction with the mr.coin community. Nym was presented to attendees and they learned about the benefits of the Nym mixnet and how everyone can collaborate to drive privacy as default. There was very strong interest by the attendees to run their own nodes and help improve the infrastructure of our mixnet. More?here. This meetup serves as a prelude to the?Jalisco TalentLand?which will be held in April in the same city.
Fortnightly Nym DevRel AMAs
Every second Wednesday, the Nym DevRel team jumps on stage to answer community questions about our tech and infrastructure from node runners, developers, and anyone else interested in the nitty gritty of the Nym network. The AMAs are scheduled and held on the Nym?Discord server. Catch us live next time and listen in, and ask your questions if you have any! Listen to previous episodes?here.?
Join the weekly Nym Community Calls!
We run weekly community calls with news roundups for the week to catch you up on what the team has been up to. Each week, guests from the Nym core team and other projects alike explore key issues and priorities for the Nym ecosystem, privacy, web3 and more.?
Community calls are free to join every Friday on the Nym?Discord server! Listen to previous episodes?here.
Events
Upcoming
Some upcoming key events that we will be participating in:?
For the full list of events and all the details, check out our?website.