What's Seraphis and Hard Fork
What's Seraphis and Hard Fork
During browsing Github issues on Monero related projects, some mentions 'the next hard fork', is the hard fork happens in a predefined intervals? Could you please explain in easy terms what's Seraphis and what changes it will bring?
Seraphis is a big change, and I think it warrants discussion.
Firstly the timeframe:
"At the moment it's quite difficult to estimate when everything will be ready for the hardfork to Seraphis and Jamtis. Some very early estimates see a possible hardfork about 2 years out, i.e. in the first half of 2025. Things may easily take a year longer."
Lots of other FAQs available here: https://github.com/seraphis-migration/strategy/wiki/Seraphis-and-Jamtis-FAQ
Importantly addresses will change.
From Localmonero.co:
"Unfortunately, Monero addresses currently in use are not compatible with Seraphis. Users would need to generate new addresses from their wallet keys in order to receive Monero if Seraphis were implemented. "
Also see this discussion about Seraphis implementation.
"No Wallet Left Behind" - Make Sure Our Wallets Survive the Fork to Monero 2.0
We fork on a schedule twice yearly to make it easier to adopt upgrades. Monero is improving fast.
To explain what changes it will bring in easy terms is a feat too big for a comment here. https://localmonero.co/knowledge/seraphis-for-monero?language=en
Small correction, we used to fork on a schedule in the beginning, in recent years we have forked way less as there is just less of a need.
Thank you!
is the hard fork happens in a predefined intervals?
No it doesn't. Monero hardforks are more commonly referred as "protocol upgrades," and they are mainly aimed at improving Monero's privacy tech.
In the past, some protocol upgrades were "predefined" in the sense that it would take place every 6 months. This was solely done in order to discourage the development of ASIC mining machines which grant disproportional advantage to the big players against the smaller mining enterprises in Monero's mining network. However, this "predefined protocol changes to the mining algo" became moot after the introduction of RandomX mining algo, which is a CPU-supremacist algorithm for Monero production.
Could you please explain in easy terms what’s Seraphis and what changes it will bring?
Seraphis aims to make Monero's codebase more modular. That way, future improvements to its privacy protocol is hoped to be introduced in a less-disruptive-way to the remainder of the codebase.
One additional protocol improvement that's in the works is "Jamtis," which changes the addressing scheme of Monero, in order to make it more flexible and fix some of its potential bugs. For more information see this presentation by Justin Berman: https://piped.video/watch?v=xGEBRQU1lzw
Lastly, very recently KayabaNerve announced that he had been working on Full Membership Proofs (FMP) for Monero, which finally has the potential to fix the weakest link in Monero's privacy protocol: ring signatures. FMP, does away with the ringsigs and the decoy selection troubles that Monero has had up to today. With FMP, your transactions will reference the entire set of enote that Monero blockchain has, instead of a 16-, or 128-size other decoys.
All in all, quite good improvements are in the works for monero. Among them, I consider the Jamtis the most "disruptive" to the current users, as it will cause existing addresses unable to be used after the protocol upgrade. But fear not: if all goes well, you will be able to generate new Jamtis addresses using your existing wallets, and keep receiving 'neros to your wallet. And, of course, your existing funds will still belong to you and you only, nobody is going to lose any funds.
Thanks for the detailed answer! Would pin it if possible!