Brainbot Update for January 2025

Shutter DAO
1

Purpose

brainbot is sharing this update regarding the grant of 205,405 sDAI from Shutter DAO 0x36 received on 17 January 2025. It covers use of funds, activities and accomplishments in January 2025.

Highlights

In January, we made strong progress in key areas:

Shielded Trading on Gnosis Chain

  • Shielded transaction stability improved significantly, reaching up to 95% inclusion over two days.

  • Validator registration was streamlined, making onboarding easier and expanding outreach efforts.

Shutter API & SDK

  • The Shutter API is now live on Gnosis Chain mainnet.

  • We built the first internal version of the Shutter SDK to simplify dApp integration.

  • Developed Shutter Hongbao, a time-lock gifting dApp showcasing Shutter API as a showcase.

Ethereum L1 – Encrypted Mempools

  • Finalized and prepared key publications outlining our approach to an out-of-protocol encrypted mempool solution, set for early February release.

  • Explored generalized encrypted mempools, including proof-based decryption triggers.

Research & New Use Cases

  • Investigated sealed bid auctions, verifiable randomness, and private data custody for smart accounts.

Use of Funds

Values

Category August 2024 September 2024 October 2024 November 2024 December 2024 January 2025
Dev $97.8K $98.5K $96.1K $97.4K $100.3K $97.2K
Biz Dev $25.0K $28.2K $28.2K $25.6K $24.2K $25.7K
Other $34.6K $22.6K $22.0K $24.0K $29.5K $32.0K
R&D $23.6K $32.1K $32.2K $40.2K $28.8K $26.3K
Marketing $17.6K $21.9K $25.9K $25.1K $42.0K $28.7K
Admin $16.5K $21.4K $24.6K $24.3K $18.8K $16.6K
Unused * $12.0K $2.0K $10.0K -$9.0K -$17.0K $0.3K
Legal $6.3K $6.4K $6.4K $6.3K $6.3K $6.3K
Total $233.4K $233.0K $233.0K $233.0K $233.0K $233.0K
  • Cumulative “Unused” funds are -$1,700.

Percentages

614×386 15.1 KB

Team

Current FTEs working on Shutter

1 CEO

1 Finance & Admin

2 Business Development

1.5 Marketing & Communications

5 Protocol Developers

1 Researcher

0.5 Lawyer

Changes

None

Shielded Trading on Gnosis Chain

Release & Stability

We’ve been supporting Nethermind in their releases and have been rigorously testing as well as expanding our testing tooling.
From our recent observations, the rate of stability, i.e. inclusion of shielded transactions vs. unshielded inclusions has been improving dramatically (up to 95% over 2 days), but continued testing is required to confirm that inclusion rate.

Shutterized Validator registration

We’ve rewritten the validator registration flow, to make it a lot easier for validators to register to be able to process shutterized transactions on the Nethermind client and are currently testing this new flow. https://github.com/NethermindEth/shutter-validator-registration/pull/4

We’ve also been increasing our support to new validators and our outreach for new validators to register, e.g. by speaking on the Gnosis Validator Meetup.

Next Milestone

We continued the conceptual work towards the next milestones on Gnosis Chain:

  • Explored an alternative path forward proposed by the Nethermind team using Smart Account validation.

  • Investigated how to enhance accountability mechanisms for validators by integrating Force Choice Inclusion Lists (FOCIL), which would introduce attestations of decryption key releases by the Keypers.

Explorer

We continue to refine the Shutter Explorer, focusing on: usability, accuracy, and better insights into encrypted transaction inclusion.

Shutter API

Development

We successfully deployed the Shutter API on the Gnosis Chain mainnet, marking a significant milestone in the project’s journey. In parallel, we built the first internal version of the Shutter SDK, designed to streamline and enhance integration for dApp developers. The SDK aims to simplify the implementation of Shutter’s commit-and-reveal encryption mechanism, improving developer experience across various real-world applications.

Testing and Improvements

With the API now live on Gnosis Chain, we have shifted our focus to rigorous testing, codebase optimization, and refining the accompanying documentation. These improvements are designed to ensure that the API and SDK deliver reliability, performance, and ease of integration.

Supporting Applications

We are actively collaborating with early adopters to build applications powered by the Shutter API. One of these projects is Shutter Hongbao, a time-lock gifting dApp that leverages encrypted transactions for secure and timed gift releases. This application highlights the versatility of Shutter’s encryption capabilities for diverse dApp use cases, such as gifts, auctions, and games.

Next Steps

  • Continued refinement of the API and SDK through testing and developer feedback.

  • Expanding support for ecosystem projects integrating Shutter encryption.

  • Preparing for a broader public release planned for March 2025.

Shutter API demo: Shutter Hongbao

Development

To showcase the capabilities of the Shutter API and foster community engagement, we developed Shutter Hongbao, a playful demo inspired by the tradition of giving red envelopes (hongbao) during the Lunar New Year. This decentralized application (DApp) brings a unique twist to the custom by allowing users to send time-locked, encrypted digital gifts on Gnosis Chain.

Built using the Shutter API, Shutter Hongbao highlights how developers can integrate our threshold encryption technology into creative dApps. This demo aims to inspire further use cases for time-lock encryption in applications such as gifting, auctions, and games.

Key components

  • Threshold Encryption: Funds are locked and can only be unlocked after a specific time.

  • Non-Custodial: Private keys and funds remain under the control of the user at all times.

  • Seamless Onboarding: Recipients do not need a pre-existing wallet. Shutter Hongbao uses an in-browser, passkey wallet to manage encrypted funds securely.

  • Simple Gnosis Chain Integration: Transactions leverage xDai, keeping network fees low and interactions user-friendly.

Link: hongbao.shutter.network.

Strategic Research

Ethereum L1 - Out of Protocol Solution

We finalized three different documents outlining our vision for an out-of-protocol solution of a threshold encrypted mempool: 1) the full roadmap, 2) an ethresearch post, and 3) a blog post. The full roadmap document describes the entire roadmap in detail, including specific steps that need to be taken to achieve our vision. The ethresearch post and the blog post are significantly shorter versions of the full roadmap with different target audiences. The former is aimed at readers with a more scientific background, whereas the latter is targeted more at readers coming from industry.

We finalized all three versions in January and published them in the beginning of February.

Full Roadmap:

https://docs.shutter.network/docs/shutter/research/the_road_towards_an_encrypted_mempool_on_ethereum

Ethresearch post: https://ethresear.ch/t/the-road-towards-a-distributed-encrypted-mempool-on-ethereum/21717

Blog post:

https://blog.shutter.network/unveiling-the-road-towards-a-distributed-encrypted-mempool-on-ethereum/

Generalized Encrypted Mempools

We investigated the possibility of generalized encrypted mempools. We mainly thought of a generalization in two directions: 1) generalizing the encryption/decryption functionality and 2) generalizing decryption triggers. For the former we are thinking about an encryption/decryption interface that abstracts the exact encryption/decryption functionality. That is, as long as the functionality implements the interface, it does not matter how encryption/decryption is done exactly. For the latter, we are investigating the possibility of using proof systems to trigger decryption. That is, an application can register a verifier with Shutter and when a proof is provided such that the registered verifier accepts the proof, decryption is triggered. This would allow to support a wide range of applications.

Further Research Directions

We looked into several potentially interesting directions for Shutter:

  1. Sealed Bid Auctions: We thought about using Shutter for sealed bid auctions. Especially, we thought about auctions, where only the winning bid gets revealed, while the losing ones remain private. To that end, we implemented a toy auction which computes the winning bid in FHE to get an idea of the computation overhead that FHE imposes for this use case.

  2. Verifiable Random Beacon: We thought about using Shutter as a beacon that outputs verifiable randomness. Since decryption keys in Shutter are essentially BLS signatures, the decryption keys could serve as randomness. We are now investigating if we can combine the encryption/decryption functionality of Shutter with randomness generation (i.e., use the same keys for randomness generation and derivation of decryption keys) or if we need to run an independent instance of Shutter for the randomness generation.

  3. Custody of Private Data for Smart Accounts: We were investigating the idea of using Shutter as a custody solution to allow smart accounts to hold and control access to private data.

Developer Relations

Shutter Network Members

We provided support and guidance to Shutter DAO 0x36 members on tasks, including:

Conferences

Multiple team members applied for conference speaking slots (e.g. ETHCC, ETHDam and others) and have received positive feedback on some of these.

Marketing & Communications

Awareness & Outreach

A higher awareness for Shutter is an essential goal and got special priority in brainbots marketing support for Shutter. As a result of the efforts and adopted strategy the presence of Shutter in media and socials starts to increase.

We hosted several livestreams and published/supported blog posts:

  • Co-launch of the Shutter Package on Dappnode with Luis on January 27.

  • Co-hosted a Twitter Space with Dappnode and Luis on Jan 31 Becoming a Shutter Keyper with Dappnode, and talked all how to become a Shutter Keyper and about building Shutterized blocks on Gnosis Chain

  • Released and launched a campaign for the Shutter Hangbao for the Lunar New Year - publicizing across social channels, Telegram, through Shutter contacts, and publicity via Gnosis Chain

  • Co-hosted a validator meetup with Gnosis Chain team on January 27 to share the Shutter HongBao and update on Shutter’s integration on Gnosis Chain

  • Promotion of Milestone 1 of ShutterTEE on January 16.

Public Relations

Continued the engagement with Luna PR after the test phase; appointed them as PR agency for next 6 months. We try to shift costs in for this from other areas and cover it within this grant.

  • Pitched and secured an op-ed for Loring Harkness on 30 November in https://crypto.news/transaction-privacy-is-blockchains-security-frontier/

  • Secured two additional op-eds with CCN, Crypto News and an interview with a podcast by Cointelegraph

  • Media training for Shutter spokespeople for better presence

  • Ethereum Encrypted Mempool white paper

  • Prepared press kits for the Ethereum Encrypted Mempool white paper: inclusion of 2 press releases, 1 Chinese translation of press release, FAQ, and 2 infographics

  • 2 weeks before campaign launch, PR agency begin targeted outreach to select media to share in advance white paper details aiming to secure coverage by publishing date

Campaign Planning for Ethereum L1 White paper, Shutter API

Preparation of creative publicity materials for the Ethereum L1 white paper, including the key visual, teaser video, and infographics. These will be integral to our campaign, to be shared with partners, and included in a media pack for press distribution.

We also initiated the design for the Shutter API launch campaign, including the development of a dedicated webpage showcasing both live and hypothetical API use cases. This effort encompasses a press release, publicity materials, and an integrated marketing campaign.

Community Engagement

We engaged the Shutter community via social media and community platforms:

Website

Completed the Protocol page with Relate Studio. Began work on the Shutter API webpage.

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The ultimate goal of shutter/brainbot is to accrue value to its token - for the community - So that the whole system can work. So far, it has been a fiasco, far worse than the rest of the market (for those who like to compare), although there were mostly insider in the shutter token. This is clear, and will need to be scrutinised. It’s a real shame to see shutter’s value being destroyed like that. It has to stop.