The Dolphin Testnet is our testnet for launching new and experimental features and services to ensure they are safe to use on Manta Network (the Polkadot chain) or Calamari Network (the Kusama Chain). Those features are subsequently pushed to Calamari, and later make their way to Manta.
With the current state of Dolphin Testnet, users are able to test out private transacting of different testnet parachain assets. The fully-functional features of Dolphin testnet demonstrate the entire workflow of private transaction on Polkadot. All transactions are immutable on-chain, and privatized with zero-knowledge proofs. The final transaction results can be viewed on the Dolphin Testnet block explorer (link: https://dolphin.subscan.io/).
Dolphin Testnet Update
On December 10, 2021, Manta & Calamari Network launched a private transaction testnet, codenamed Dolphin. Since that time, Dolphin has received tremendous interest from the community. In approximately three months after the release, the testnet has conducted over 30,000+ unique transactions across 2,100 unique wallets addresses.
The Manta and Calamari Network team has been working hard on building privacy for the entire Polkadot and Kusama ecosystem. The project is building a service that allows users to privatize any parachain asset, including DOT and KSM, through use of zero-knowledge proofs.
Dolphin Testnet Achievements
Out of 423 pieces of feedback that have been received since the launch of the Dolphin testnet, the overall user rating of the platform has been an impressive 4.5 out of 5. Users enjoyed the overall simple user experience and privacy workflow. The main criticism that the testnet has received has been around the ZKP generation speed, which will be addressed with the release of Dolphin Testnet v2.
December 10, 2021
The Dolphin Testnet is launched. The Dolphin Testnet ZKP signer was released for macOS.
December 28, 2021
The Dolphin Testnet ZKP signer was released for Windows.
January 14, 2022
The Dolphin Testnet ZKP signer was released for Linux (Ubuntu).
February 02, 2022
The Dolphin Testnet achieves 10,000+ transactions.
March 14, 2022
The Dolphin Testnet achieves 30,000+ transactions and 2,200+ wallet addresses.
Moving Forward
This month, we will also be releasing Dolphin Testnet v2. The next iteration of Dolphin Testnet will introduce many new features, as well as strong performance optimizations of the ZK generation for an overall better user experience.
Upcoming Dolphin Testnet V2 Features
Reusable Shielded Addresses for Improved UX
Testnet V1 used one-time addresses, which were unique to every transaction, derived from your long-term secret key. This one-time address was then used by a sender to build the UTXO and NOTE that you could spend later.
Testnet V2 uses a reusable shielded address system, which offers the same experience as regular private-public keypairs (such as those you use for your DOT wallet addresses). Shielded addresses can be used indefinitely, or once as an optional feature.
Viewing Keys for Self-Sovereign Compliance
Viewing keys represent one of the first steps that Mantamari is taking towards self-sovereign compliance and auditing. The viewing keys are constructed in such a way that they add no cost to the core payment protocol itself.
Viewing keys let users decrypt and deanonymize all the private transactions sent from a particular public key. Viewing keys are read-only, so they do not give viewers any power to spend private assets.
Optimized ZK Membership Proofs for Faster Performance
Merkle-Tree-based membership proofs are the most expensive part of our private payment circuit. These proofs are chained calls to a fixed binary hash function, so we need to optimize this function as much as possible.
For these membership proofs, we also need a uniform data type across each layer of the tree. Field elements are the cheapest data type to operate over, so we needed to find a fast hash that operates only on-field elements.
We chose the Poseidon Hash Function to optimize this most expensive part of the circuit. Poseidon is a very simple repeated-round-based hash function. It is based entirely on algebraic operations on-field elements and so is the most zk-friendly hash function out there for current state-of-the-art proving systems.
The ZK-proof systems are more optimized for these algebraic constructions in the found fields. Poseidon is exactly what you want in this environment to reduce the number of constraints.
About Manta Network
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Manta Network is committed to building a better Web3 world through privacy protection. Manta’s product design starts from first principles and provides end-to-end privacy protection for blockchain users through leading cryptography architectures such as zkSNARK. While ensuring privacy, Manta offers interoperability, convenience, high performance, and auditability, allowing users to conduct private transfers and transactions between any parallel chain of assets. Manta’s vision is to provide more convenient privacy protection services for the entire blockchain world.
Manta’s founding team is made up of several cryptocurrency veterans, professors and academics with experience from Harvard University, MIT and Algorand. Manta’s advisors include Hypersphere Ventures co-founder Jack Platts, Polychain partner Tekin Salimi, former Web3 Foundation co-founder Ashley Tyson, Consensys’ Shuyao Kong.
Manta’s investors include Polychain, ParaFi, Binance Labs, Multicoin, CoinFund, Alameda, DeFiance and Hypersphere. Manta is also an official Web3 Foundation grant recipient, a member of Substrate Builder Program, and a member of Berkeley Blockchain Accelerator.
