Nighthawk Wallet team had another packed month in May with work towards getting the product suite compatible with NU5. And keeping up with the updated core software releases from ECC.
The New Android design implementation saw the completion of several new screens & price end-point setup. The designs for Unified Address workflows are pending as we learn about best practices for wallets to handle UAs & Orchard pool support. Here’s the progress on the Transfer & Settings screens:
Nighthawk Wallet updates:
- Build, Test, and Release NU5 compatible Nighthawk Wallet on iOS & Android
- Migrate Zcash Android SDK from v1.3.* to v1.5.0 with improved coroutines & threading.
- Address a multitude of support requests from new users of Nighthawk Wallet wrt the Cypherpunk NFT whitelist.
- Full App Changelog is available at https://nighthawkwallet.com/changelog/
- Discuss the work in progress towards Oblivious Message Retrieval with @thomaslzy and chart out roadmap items and timeframe to review and test the demo server-client interaction.
- Thanks to all the Zcash ambassadors who helped new audiences with the shielded memo whitelisting for the Cypherpunk NFT & Thank you to @yoditar, @Michae2xl & @artkor to continue writing about wallet guides in regional languages & monitoring the NU5 update situation around wallets.
Light Client Working Group:
- Attend bi-weekly LCWG calls to discuss Halo SDK support for NU5 transactions.
- LCWG meeting briefs are available at GitHub GitHub - zcash/lcwg: Light Client Working Group project management repository
Goal: Keep up to date with fixes for zcashd & lightwalletd to continue providing public infrastructure for light wallet-based Zcash applications.
- Triage issues and finally deploy working versions of zcashd v5.0.0 & lightwalletd v0.4.11 on main-net
- Upgrade test-net services to zcashd v5.0.0 & lightwalletd v0.4.12
- Maintain 100% uptime via load-balanced main-net and single instance test-net services
- Continue maintaining the monthly warranty canary on https://lightwalletd.com
Goal: Provide a fast, lightweight, Tor-enabled, no-tracker/no-analytics/no-logging Zcash transaction explorer.
- Perform zcashd upgrades to v5.0.0
- Add support for Unified Address type
- Verified all the existing features to be working with the latest v5.0.0
- Started work on hosting a test-net version of Zcash Block Explorer per demand
Funding Status Review:
- Nighthawk Wallet Design & Development Grant was initially funded from April to December 2021 with the aim to deliver NU5 support, we’ve successfully delivered 30+ app releases across App Store, Google Play & F-droid and our users continue enjoying the product. Our team managed to extend the operational budget into 2022 and we are working currently with a balance of ~130 ZEC. Funding wallet development and incentivizing developers is important, and the road ahead needs to be planned for sustainability.
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lightwalletd.com operations are funded till March 1st, 2023
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Zcash Block Explorer hosting is funded till August 1st, 2022, our team continues to add improvements for NU5 support. We hope retroactive funding to be considered for keeping the services operational till the end of 2022 and beyond as @aiyadt continues to serve on @ZcashGrants
The roadmap for Zcash Block Explorer includes plans for:
- Test-net support for NU5
- Viewing Key decryption for UAs & Orchard Pool
- Enhanced blockchain database for optimally retrieving information
- Evaluating the use of zebrad for the node backend
Our team is committed to Zcash development and all developers continue to be paid in ZEC only.
BONUS: Watch @aiyadt present on a Web3 for Human Rights Activists panel, hosted by Amnesty International & Fight for the Future @ 4 minutes mark.
Zcash <> Thorchain Integration
Goal: Add Zcash to Thorchain to enable decentralized ZEC trading and LP incentives.
- BiFrost
- Update the nodes to support NU5
- Update test fixtures to support v5 transaction formats
- Pending item before raising BiFrost PR:
a) Fix failing Test cases for Thorchain blockchain-related transactions.
b) Execute test suite on test-net node infra.
And that’s a wrap for the May update! Our team is closely monitoring the NU5 upgrade and we look forward to the first-ever trustless setup deployment of money going live tomorrow!