Nighthawk Apps Launches Global Zcash Light Client Infrastructure

NighthawkApps · June 1, 2023, 12:54pm

Nighthawk Apps, a leading developer of privacy-focused cryptocurrency wallets, has announced the release of the geographically distributed setup of Zcash light client infrastructure. This development will make wallet services faster and more available to Zcash users located around the globe.

Zcash is a cryptocurrency that offers strong privacy protection for its users, using advanced cryptographic techniques such as zero-knowledge proofs. However, to use Zcash, users need to connect to a node that validates transactions and provides blockchain data. Running a full node can be resource-intensive and impractical for many users, especially on mobile devices.

That’s why Nighthawk Apps has created a network of light client nodes that can serve Zcash users with minimal bandwidth and storage requirements. The light client nodes use the Zcash Light Client Protocol (ZLCP), which allows users to verify transactions without downloading the entire blockchain. The ZLCP also supports shielded transactions, which hide the sender, receiver, and amount of ZEC transferred.

The new setup of Nighthawk Apps’ light client infrastructure consists of four node clusters located in different regions of the world: Toronto for North America, São Paulo for South America, Frankfurt for Europe & Africa, and Singapore for Asia & Oceania. These locations were chosen to optimize latency and availability for Zcash users across continents. The node clusters are automated with Kubernetes, an open-source container orchestration system for automating software deployment, scaling, and management. The Kubernetes scripts written by Nighthawk Apps are audited by Taylor Hornby(@earthrise), a well-known Zcash community auditor, and security researcher.

Location	Host	Port
North America	na.lightwalletd.com	443
South America	sa.lightwalletd.com	443
Europe & Africa	eu.lightwalletd.com	443
Asia & Oceania	ai.lightwalletd.com	443

Click here to find the closest cluster to your region.

By launching this global Zcash light client infrastructure, Nighthawk Apps aims to provide a reliable and convenient way for Zcash users to access the network and enjoy its privacy features. Nighthawk Apps also invites other developers and projects to use its infrastructure to build their own Zcash applications and services.

Nighthawk Apps is a proud recipient of a one-year grant from the Zcash Community Grants program, which funds independent teams to develop and maintain public good in the Zcash ecosystem. The grant was awarded in February 2023, following a proposal submission and positive feedback from the Zcash community. Nighthawk Apps appreciates the support and trust of the Zcash Community Grants program.

For more information about connecting to the Global Zcash Light Client Infrastructure, visit https://lightwalletd.com and follow @NighthawkApps on Twitter to learn about its products.

conradoplg · June 1, 2023, 1:25pm

Pretty cool, good job!

gordonesTV · June 1, 2023, 4:31pm

Great news! Waiting more advances of this…

hanh · June 1, 2023, 9:43pm

Great! Which version of lightwalletd are you running on these servers?

pacu · June 1, 2023, 11:09pm

North America

grpcurl na.lightwalletd.com:443 cash.z.wallet.sdk.rpc.CompactTxStreamer/GetLightdInfo 
{
  "version": "v0.4.13",
  "vendor": "ECC LightWalletD",
  "taddrSupport": true,
  "chainName": "main",
  "saplingActivationHeight": "419200",
  "consensusBranchId": "c2d6d0b4",
  "blockHeight": "2106878",
  "gitCommit": "2d3943b8e995a3b2c5648ec9859dccc67c535386",
  "buildDate": "2023-05-13",
  "buildUser": "root",
  "estimatedHeight": "2106878",
  "zcashdBuild": "v5.5.0",
  "zcashdSubversion": "/MagicBean:5.5.0/"
}

South America

grpcurl sa.lightwalletd.com:443 cash.z.wallet.sdk.rpc.CompactTxStreamer/GetLightdInfo
{
  "version": "v0.4.13",
  "vendor": "ECC LightWalletD",
  "taddrSupport": true,
  "chainName": "main",
  "saplingActivationHeight": "419200",
  "consensusBranchId": "c2d6d0b4",
  "blockHeight": "2106878",
  "gitCommit": "2d3943b8e995a3b2c5648ec9859dccc67c535386",
  "buildDate": "2023-05-13",
  "buildUser": "root",
  "estimatedHeight": "2106878",
  "zcashdBuild": "v5.5.0",
  "zcashdSubversion": "/MagicBean:5.5.0/"
}

Europe & Africa

grpcurl eu.lightwalletd.com:443 cash.z.wallet.sdk.rpc.CompactTxStreamer/GetLightdInfo
{
  "version": "v0.4.13",
  "vendor": "ECC LightWalletD",
  "taddrSupport": true,
  "chainName": "main",
  "saplingActivationHeight": "419200",
  "consensusBranchId": "c2d6d0b4",
  "blockHeight": "2106878",
  "gitCommit": "2d3943b8e995a3b2c5648ec9859dccc67c535386",
  "buildDate": "2023-05-04",
  "buildUser": "root",
  "estimatedHeight": "2106878",
  "zcashdBuild": "v5.5.0",
  "zcashdSubversion": "/MagicBean:5.5.0/"
}

Asia & Oceania

grpcurl ai.lightwalletd.com:443 cash.z.wallet.sdk.rpc.CompactTxStreamer/GetLightdInfo
{
  "version": "v0.4.13",
  "vendor": "ECC LightWalletD",
  "taddrSupport": true,
  "chainName": "main",
  "saplingActivationHeight": "419200",
  "consensusBranchId": "c2d6d0b4",
  "blockHeight": "2106878",
  "gitCommit": "2d3943b8e995a3b2c5648ec9859dccc67c535386",
  "buildDate": "2023-05-04",
  "buildUser": "root",
  "estimatedHeight": "2106878",
  "zcashdBuild": "v5.5.0",
  "zcashdSubversion": "/MagicBean:5.5.0/"
}

kowalabearhugs · June 2, 2023, 12:55am

There are no lightwalletd.com warrant canary updates for April and May of this year nor I have seen any other announcements from Nighthawk or the Light Client Working Group to explain these discrepancies. The Nighthawk 2023 roadmap included, "Continue maintaining the monthly warranty canary on https://lightwalletd.com "

Per Nighthawk’s policy, " If a warrant canary has not been updated in the time period specified by us, users are to assume that we have indeed been served with a secret subpoena. The intention is to allow us to warn users of the existence of a subpoena passively, without disclosing to others that the government has sought or obtained access to information or records under a secret subpoena.

hanh · June 2, 2023, 1:06am

Does it include @adityapk00 PR that filters transactions based on the number of spends/outputs/actions?

aiyadt · June 2, 2023, 4:00am

Hey @kowalabearhugs

We appreciate your attentive monitoring of the lightwalletd.com service status.

Myself and @vamsi have been issuing a monthly warrant canary for 2 years to ensure transparency and trust. However, based on the recommendations of leading privacy experts, we have decided to switch to a Quarterly User Information Request Report, which is consistent with the best practices of public infrastructure service providers.

We have communicated this change in our 2023 grant application document, the March Warrant Canary, and our social media channels.

github.com

lightwalletd/lightwalletd.github.io/blob/gh-pages/_wc/2023-03-01-wc.txt

Warrant Canary, March 1st 2023

1. We have not placed any backdoors into zcashblockexplorer.com or lightwalletd.com software, and we have not complied with any requests to do so.
2. We have not complied with any National Security Letters or FISA court orders regarding our software.
3. We have not been subject to any gag order by a FISA court regarding our software.

This is the last monthly warrant canary statement.
Nighthawk Apps will publish quarterly transparency reports in-line with the best practices of public infrastructure service providers.

HN top 21 front page (https://news.ycombinator.com)

1. Daniel Stenberg and the home of curl in Stockholm, Sweden (hackerstations.com)
2. Microsoft Kosmos-1: A Multimodal Large Language Model (github.com/microsoft)
3. Bitwise Division (p5r.org)
4. OpenAI Is Now Everything It Promised Not to Be: Closed-Source, and For-Profit (vice.com)
5. Advice to Aimless, Excited Programmers (2010) (dadgum.com)
6. Experts say humans could be wrestling AI for control by 2035 (aimagazine.com)
7. TrueVault Is Hiring Our Head of Engineering (ycombinator.com)
8. Algorithm edits every sales demo into a highlight-reel video (demotime.com)
9. AMD Zen2 ymm registers rolling back (lkml.org)

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Furthermore, I vehemently oppose any form of mass surveillance.

tokidoki · June 2, 2023, 10:13am

Based on the version number and vendor info, this looks like the latest version of github.com/zcash/lightwalletd

I believe Zecwallet fork has lower version number and lists Zecwallet LightWalletD as its vendor

hanh · June 2, 2023, 10:44am

Thanks for the investigation. I’m actually interested in a particular PR.

github.com/zcash/lightwalletd

API Suggestion: GetBlockRangeWithFilter

opened 04:58PM - 28 Aug 22 UTC

closed 08:52PM - 30 Sep 22 UTC

hhanh00

**What is your feature request?** Since the beginning of Jul, the blockchain …has seen a surge of large transactions with a lot of outputs. The reason remains unknown but it is clear that for most people, these transactions are not relevant. However, currently, lightwallets must download and process all this data. At this point, the "compact" blockchain is bigger than 5 GB. More than 4 GB are from Jul-Aug alone. In fact, downloading is the bottleneck for YWallet and when I synchronize from my own local server, I can pull >10 MB/s. But if I use ZWL or NH servers, I usually only get ~1-2 MB/s. Unfortunately, the wallet is waiting for data. I suggest offering a filter option in LWD which would prune the compact outputs down to the `cmu` (that is needed for witness maintenance). There is an ongoing discussion about changing the fee structure in the future. I suggest retroactively applying a similar formula to the existing transactions. Essentially, a client wallet would say: "I am not interested in transactions that would have cost more than X in fees". Either they are not for me, or they are from spam / dust transactions and would waste my phone resources. Right now, we could make the filter just be a limit on the number of outputs. Then update/improve it when the formula is agreed on. The client can decide what threshold he accepts. **How would this feature help you?** With this function, the lightwallet will download only 32 bytes instead of 116 (=32+32+52) per output. So ~1/4. Instead of downloading 5 GB, it would be ~1.5 GB (very rough estimate). YWallet implements this filtering logic in the client but it still must download all this excess data. Additionally, the API could also introduce an option to discard all Orchard data from the download. This would be interesting for wallets that currently do not support Orchard. As a new API, wallets that don't use this feature will not be affected in any fashion. Thanks, --h

and Add spam filters by adityapk00 · Pull Request #413 · zcash/lightwalletd · GitHub

This has a huge impact on the performance of the spam filter because it avoids downloading the spam transaction from the server. Otherwise, the filtering happens at the client.
As a result, I always recommend using the ZecWallet server when synchronization speed is an issue.

JoakimEQ · July 12, 2023, 12:55pm

This is a really cool advancement if it works - so basically Remote synchronization (lightweight) should be possible for wallets now?