Firo has announced its new privacy protocol Lelantus Spark, an evolution of Firo’s work on Lelantus v1/v2 that introduces several new privacy-preserving features that protect data and prevent prying eyes from monitoring spending patterns.
Lelantus Spark is an evolution of Lelantus v1/v2 and retains many core benefits such as straightforward construction using well-established cryptographic assumptions and no required trusted setup, while presenting users with:
- Spark addresses, a new, non-interactive addressing system that automatically allows senders to generate one-time addresses that cannot be searched on the blockchain. Third parties are prevented from viewing fund amounts and send times, greatly enhancing the recipient’s privacy.
- Efficient multisignature operations permit multiple mutually non-trusting parties to cooperatively generate, receive and authorise transactions associated with a multisig address. This feature protects against attempts to seize control or authorise spends without the others’ approval.
- Incoming and full view keys provide flexibility in transaction visibility and allow wallet owners to grant third parties opt-in visibility into incoming and outgoing transactions.
- Computational offloading allows low-powered devices, such as hardware wallets, to support Spark transactions by offloading transaction creation, chain scanning and balance computation to PCs and phones without delegating spend authority.
- Modular design facilitates straightforward security analysis and allows easier upgrade of components such as more efficient ZKP.
The team behind Firo is exploring other useful functionality related to payment proofs, improved addressing and protocol transitions relevant to Spark, and plans to release a paper overviewing the protocol to the IACR preprint archive in the coming weeks.
Coding will begin in Q4 2021 for an anticipated final release in Q2 2022.
“There are only a handful of cryptocurrency privacy protocols in meaningful use today, each with different trade-offs,” notes Reuben Yap, Project Steward of Firo. “We believe Lelantus Spark represents a holistic balance of high anonymity, simplicity and flexibility while remaining true to the spirit of trustlessness in cryptocurrencies.”
Since its founding in 2016, Firo has researched and built its own technology, which has resulted in next-level technological innovations that push the frontiers of blockchain privacy. Lelantus Spark is Firo’s latest innovation that furthers its mission of providing clear and consistent transactional privacy.
