Brainbot Update for October 2024

Shutter DAO
1

Purpose

brainbot is sharing this update regarding the grant of 205,405 sDAI from Shutter DAO 0x36 received on 17 October 2024. It covers use of funds, activities and accomplishments in October 2024.

Highlights

brainbot continued with our core protocol development and research, and achieved several important launches in October.

A few highlights:

  • Shielded Trading on Gnosis Chain: Improved stability (reaching 100% inclusion) and launched Shutter Explorer.
  • Shielded Trading on Ethereum L1: Outlined requirements for a collaboration with MEV Blocker. Mapped business models and economic incentives for Shutter and other ecosystem actors.
  • Partnerships: Announced the Olas and Isotropic integration - the first use of autonomous agents to create an open platform for experimentation in MEV prevention.
  • Developer Relations: Deployed NanoShutter, a simplified version of the Shutter protocol for hackathons and educational purposes
  • Awareness & Engagement: Further expanded Shutter’s presence at conferences and hackathons. Hosted an increased number of online events.

Use of Funds

Values

Category August 2024 September 2024 October 2024
Dev $97,8K $98.5K $96.1K
R&D $23.6K $32.1K $32.2K
Biz Dev $25K $28.2K $28.2K
Marketing $17.6K $21.9K $25.9K
Admin $16.5K $21.4K $24.6K
Legal $6.3K $6.4K $6.4K
Other $34.6K $22.6K $22K
Unused * $12K $2K $10K
Total $233.4 $233 $233
  • Cumulative “Unused” funds are $24,000.

Percentages

1182×732 51.3 KB

Team

Current FTEs working on Shutter

  • 1 CEO
  • 1 Finance & Admin
  • 2 Business Development
  • 1.5 Marketing & Communications
  • 6 Protocol Developers
  • 1 Researcher
  • 0.5 Lawyer

Changes

None

Shielded Trading on Gnosis Chain

Release & Stability

We achieved 100% transaction inclusion by building an inclusion service which resends transactions that might have gotten stuck. There are still a small number of system-wide issues remaining, which result in a small number of un-shielded inclusions. These issues are especially related to communication between the Keyper and validator software.

  • Developed and deployed the Gnosis inclusion service which resends transactions that might have gotten stuck.
  • Fixed core bugs in the codebase, testing suite, and observer component.
  • Implemented Flood Sub Peer Discovery in the Keyper client and supported Nethermind in doing so from their end.

Explorer Release

We released the Shutter Explorer (https://explorer.shutter.network/), which offers a comprehensive view of the operation of Shielded Trading on Gnosis Chain and prospectively other integrations of Shutter.

  • Deployed Shutter Explorer which provides system-wide statistics, Shutterized slot predictions, and tracks transactions across the encrypted mempool.
  • Enhanced visualizations, especially the dynamic slot progression to offer deeper insights into key metrics and protocol performance.
  • Integrated and updated the Explorer to display and incorporate transactions that have been sent via the inclusion service.

Shielded Voting on Snapshot

Dashboard & Analysis

We are working with Snapshot to refine and expand the Shielded Voting on Snapshot Dune Analytics Dashboard.

Growth Activities

We ran our new sales funnel, identifying new DAOs on Snapshot and helping them enable Shielded Voting.

We collected frequent questions and objections (from DAO forums and 1:1 calls) and crafted responses.

We hosted a Discord space “Shielded voting on Snapshot: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly”, featuring update and comments from Loring and Jeremy, COO of Snapshot.

We identified improvements to the text and UX design for Shielded Voting on the new Snapshot interface (https://snapshot.box/#/explore). Snapshot will make these improvements soon.

We collected testimonials from ShapeShift DAO, Layer2DAO and Moon DAO, which will be featured on the new Shielded voting webpage.

Decentralized Keyper Set

We began work on the tasks needed to decentralize the Keyper set and integrate it with Snapshot.

Strategic Research

Shielded Trading on Ethereum L1

We continued working on the shorter-term vision for integrating Shielded Trading into Ethereum L1 and PBS.

  • Outlined the requirements for the integration of Shutter into MEV Blocker.
  • Investigated the new economic incentives for various ecosystem actors in the current PBS system.
  • Explored business models for Shutter that aligns with the economic incentives of the other entities.

Shielded Trading on Arbitrum (via Espresso)

We had an active discussion with Espresso about a suitable threshold encryption scheme for their decentralized timeboost sequencer. Espresso seemed generally interested in Shutter’s threshold encryption scheme but decided to explore other schemes first. Espresso will get back to us in case they decide that Shutter is the best option for them.

Advanced Cryptographic Techniques

We started working on techniques to prevent collusion among keypers.

  • Reviewed research papers to determine if the proposed techniques are applicable to Shutter.
  • Prepared a blog post about Secret Sharing with Snitching - a novel primitive introduced in a recent research paper - collaboration with TU Darmstadt and University of Warsaw.
  • Came up with a practical solution for anti-collusion that is easy to integrate into Shutter.

Developer Relations

NanoShutter

We developed and deployed NanoShutter, a simplified version of the Shutter protocol for hackathons and educational purposes, which features an API for decryption keys every 10 seconds.

Shutter Network Members

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

  • Improving DAO participation (inc seasons, notifications, compensation, delegation)
  • Testing the Sablier module on Decent
  • Understanding options for treasury management
  • ​​Integrating Dappnode with Shutter Network’s Keyper client software
  • Implementing staking mechanism, economic parameters, indexing, and audit
  • Bridging Shutter DAO 0x36’ SHU to Optimism Mainnet
  • Developing an AI agent driven MEV and transaction ordering simulator on Gnosis Chain
  • Reviewing a grant to Artis for market making services

Hackathons

We offered a new hackathon challenge and prize: “Build a consumer dApp which utilizes Shutter commit & reveal scheme on Gnosis Chain”, up to 50,000 SHU.

ETHSofia (October 17-19) - Loring attended the hackathon in person to support hackers and judge submissions. Team “StealBid” utilized NanoShutter to build an encrypted procurement process (all proposals in response to a public tender are encrypted until the end of the bidding period) which can be used by companies and DAOs. See: StealthBid | Buidls | DoraHacks. We awarded StealthBid the full prize of 50,000 SHU. StealthBid plans to continue to build on Shutter, and brainbot will continue to support.

EthGlobal San Francisco (October 18-20) - Tatu attended the hackathon in person to support hackers and judge submissions. Several teams explored using Shutter. However, we decided not to award prizes.

Marketing & Communications

Presentations & Interviews

ETHMilan (Sept 26-27) - We published the video of Loring’s 20 minute presentation titled “Your Favorite Platforms, More Fair & Credibly Neutral”:

ETHSofia (October 17-19) - Loring delivered a 20 minute presentation (similar content as ETHMilan).

DevCon (November 9-15) - Luis will be speaking at several DevCon side events (November 9-15), including Web3Privacy Now Congress on Nov 11 and Night of the Elephants: Exploring New Primitives in Ethereum on Nov 11.

ETHVienna (December 2) - Loring has been invited to deliver a presentation.

“I Build, Therefore I Am” Podcast Interview (October 23). Luis was interviewed by Cartesi on X/Twitter

Awareness & Outreach

We launched a Shielded Trading Gnosis Chain campaign on October 10 to celebrate and spread awareness of Shutter’s improved integration and new Shutter Explorer webpage. The campaign included:

  • A joint twitter announcement and posts with Hopr, Dappnode, Gnosis Chain, Swapr, Gateway, Dappnode
  • Joint blog posts on the Shutter blog and the Gnosis Chain blog
  • Launch of Shutter Explorer webpage
  • Live Stream Panel Discussion “Setting the Standard for Fairness and Credible Neutrality” with Gnosis Chain, Gateway, Nethermind, OKX Ventures. Streamed to Shutter, Gnosis Chain and OKX Twitter accounts
  • Gnosis Chain Shielded Trading UI integration on Swapr
  • Live Stream discussion “What if Your Chain was More Neutral than Switzerland” on October 31 with Gnosis Chain, Nethermind, Olas, Isotropic on the Shutter Discord

We made a joint announcement of an Olas, Isotropic integration on October 16: This marks the first use of autonomous agents to create an open platform for experimentation in Maximal Extractable Value (MEV) prevention and transaction ordering strategies. The announcement included:

  • A joint twitter post with Olas and Isotropic
  • Shutter blog post with announcement details
  • An “Olas Currents” Twitterspace on October 18 with Olas, Isotropic and Gnosis Chain
  • Live Stream discussion on Shutter Discord “What if Your Chain was More Neutral than Switzerland” on October 31 with Gnosis Chain, Nethermind, Olas, Isotropic

We continued and expanded our Retro Rewards program with new changes making it easier to get involved: “SHUt Up and Take The Money Edition”

  • Now anyone can earn rewards by making a positive contribution to Shutter.
  • Anyone can also contribute others’ content.

Community Engagement

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

Website

Continued production of web pages with Relate Studio.

We are building a research section on the Shutter website to inform the community about past and ongoing research projects, engage in discussions with the community, and invite the community to share ideas for advancing the Shutter protocol.