Utreexo demonstration release Dryja https://medium.com/mit-media-lab-digital-currency-initiative/utreexo-demonstration-release-a0d87506fd70
July 22, 2020
Utreexo demonstration release Dryja https://medium.com/mit-media-lab-digital-currency-initiative/utreexo-demonstration-release-a0d87506fd70
I’m excited to announce the release of the first demonstration of Utreexo. Utreexo is a new scalability technology for Bitcoin, which can make Bitcoin nodes smaller and faster while keeping the same security and privacy as full nodes.
Existing lightweight Bitcoin software often uses “SPV” or Simplified Payment Verification. While SPV allows some level of verification, it is susceptible to attacks that fully validating nodes aren’t. Utreexo fully validates, while getting some of the low-footprint benefits the SPV nodes enjoy. Utreexo replaces the “UTXO set” of Bitcoin, which is the database that keeps track of who owns which coins, with a novel cryptographic accumulator. For more info about the design, see the paper here, or this explainer by Utreexo developer kcalvinalvin here.
“Release” is somewhat arbitrary as I and others have been working on this code for a bit over a year. Shout-outs to kcalvinalvin who has been working on this since we met in Seoul last summer, as well as dergoegge and ysangkok who have come on board more recently. At this point there is still lots of work to be done, but it is in a place where tech-savvy people can download it, try it out, and see that it does some pretty interesting things.