Update: proposal has been updated and new ref is live with a 44% lower KSM ask:
Background:
Recently ref 658 was posted to cover the audit cost of the opensource privacy project Kusama Shield.
The referendum got NAY voted the last day of confirmation, mainly due to:
Retro active funding was asked(now removed audit ref only like requested by whale)
Up to date CI system(had forgotten to upload the latest version)
Broken unused function in the Solidity Code(now patched)
Updated future features planned after audit
As the people contributing to Kusama Shield is dedicated to bringing in a good Auditor that can spot potential security holes and unsound ZK patterns. We have now made a revised version, available here:
The Audit is a current blocker for various features and will be a large step forward as 95% of future collaborating projects that are in need of low cost privacy friendly transactions, takes projects more serious that have had an Audit expert look into the code, It’s a quality stamp that the project is currently missing, that is why it has taken several months to haggle down the rate and get this going.
If you have feedback or ideas, drop them in the comments bellow .
Cheers
~flipchan
Could you detail a bit more what the 90h audit, 150h fixes and 20h trusted setup actually cover? I’m having a bit of trouble understanding what those hours concretely correspond to.
And most importantly, will there be a re-review / counter-audit by David after the fixes? Otherwise I don’t really see how we can verify that the fixes actually solve the issues rather than just moving them somewhere else, which we see quite often with audits.
Also, if possible, could you add the exact repos + commits/versions that will be audited? It would make it much easier to track and verify which code was actually audited. Right now the smart contract git ref is still "INSERT ME"
Hi @RustSyndicate thanks for coming back with a revised proposal. I see that most of the feedback given by multiple community members has been addressed, which is excellent.
On my side, most of my concerns have been clarified, including that no further treasury funding will be requested, let’s hope post-audit and once in production adoption will follow to make it sustainable and that the project’s future dev work is not abandonned. Also, thanks for removing the retroactive funding. I still have a couple of questions:
If the curators do not have time (as stated in the Q&A section of the new proposal) why not find other curators to approve the milestones? Alternatively have you considered the payment of each milestone to be setup on the proposal instead of an upfront payment?
If the goal is to make a better version of Zodl, then ease of use (UX/UI) need to be a priority for adoption to happen, in my opinion, and a real UX/UI audit is needed, have you considered this option? Maybe some recommendations can come from the community but I believe there might be more work than just having color options.
Could you detail a bit more what the 90h audit, 150h fixes and 20h trusted setup actually cover?
Sure, a more detailed description will be provided, the high level overview is Audit hours is paid out to the Auditor after he has finished his work and all patches have been verified.
most importantly, will there be a re-review / counter-audit by David after the fixes?
Yupp, this has now been clarified in the FAQ. So process is: Auditor finds bug > patch gets written and tested > auditor verifies fix > put in main code repos and deployed into the real world.
could you add the exact repos + commits/versions that will be audited?
A more detailed description have been added with links and more information in the scope section
The goal is to make a scalable privacy protocol serving web3 users from a set of polkavm programs, Zodl is more mentioned as a cost comparison and alternative of an app with lots more budget but less features, Rather than trying to replace Zodl(Zingo wallet team I personally think its the best zec wallet team, lots better tech with a bit worse ui), I think its important to remember that we can do a lot more with a mulit asset shielded pool than zodl can , the UI has gotten a facelift with 7 new theme modes, you should check it out and give feedback. Would be keen to hear what you think of the newer themes
As mentioned in the above proposal one important direction past audit is to be able to serve users that are already using stable coins. Earlier this year, the Kusama Shield project ran a stealth mode test pilot for a few weeks targeted towards users that mostly use USDT, LTC, ZEC and BTC. It was successful with a bit less than 3 bitcoin in alt coin trading volume for a short time frame. After this test, lots of things and features have been planned, for example a huge problem for users and businesses has been to avoid the price volatility, while at the same time not “doxing” /exposing all theiir sales data to everyone publicly.
So without rambling to long, in short the UI is one way of using the protocol, the SDK’s another, but the future looks like most planned trading volume is going to come from Kusama Shield facilitating cross chain shielded transfers and letting projects store resources in the multi asset shielded pool. A full telegram app has already been created but majority of integrations and future features are stalled because of the complexity of the system, an AUDIT is needed to ensure that future users can be safe while depositing and withdrawing
I think there are still a few things Kusama needs to sort out first before continuing to fund projects like this.
Not really about Shield itself, but more about where Kusama wants to go and how we want to handle funding and follow-up for these projects.
For the bounty, if the current curators don’t have the time anymore, I’m totally fine with bringing it back with new ones and clear milestones. That would make it easier to follow each step and release funds only when the milestone is actually done.
There’s also an ongoing discussion in the community about where Kusama wants to go and what its future priorities should be: Where Does Kusama Go From Here?
It would also give projects like Shield some room to adapt to the new vision and priorities that come out of that discussion, rather than committing to everything while we’re still figuring that out.
I think we should sort some of these things out first, then decide which tech and projects make sense to fund in that direction.
Philosophy → Society → Tech
That’s basically my point. Not that Shield doesn’t belong in Kusama, just that there are a few things to figure out first.
Hey, as producers of a privacy protocol, we owe it to our users and consumers to provide an audit and try our best to make sure it runs smooth and not mess up user funds.
As this random anon whale that nuked the previous ref, its been relaunched but so far this person has not voted in favor. The audit will happen but without treasury funding the protocol will have to source this capital else where which may mean catering less to Kusama and polkadot users and more towards the broader picture(hopefully not having to launch an ICO). The project wants to remain opensource and available to all but this may change as the application will have to adapt to cover runway.
Kusama Shield is also the only PolkaVM compatible zk program that is also publishing and maintaining kusama compatible sdk’s, For example: More than 5 random people from other ecosystem walked up to me during the berlin blockchain week and was happy that Kusama Shield is so called “The only active privacy project in Polkadot and Kusama”.
As the project has several paid contributors and now we pray we can pay the auditor before he just thinks we are taking to long and we have to pay 4-8x to someone else for a similar job. The majority of features has been added to the Kusama Shield project without funding, such as getting all those swap pairs to be live on assethub soon after ah migration, offramp features also good.
If we cut funding to all projects while people are waiting for direction and clarity its just going to make people want to leave and go elsewhere.
I understand your point of view, dont fully agree with it, but thanks for your comment and participating in the discussion!
Despite the fact that most of the feedback community members gave has been addressed, I have voted NAY on this v2 proposal. I stand by this:
At this point I am not comfortable with supporting upfront payments from the treasury. I understand that the auditor would be paid upon delivery of the audit (90 hours) and that the KusamaShield team will be addressing the fixes thereafter (150 hours) so why not keep bounty 32 and approve each milestone/payment when the time comes?
There seems to be an extreme rush to do the audit and pay the auditor, which I can understand, but I also personally do not appreciate what could appear to be menaces to push this ref through. Either Kusama Shield is committed to Kusama or it is not and that is a simple reality to face.
The shielded pool is meant to live in Kusama instead of currently Polkadot ok, that part has been clarified. If the runway needs to be covered elsewhere than the Kusama treasury because the timeline is not fast enough for the auditor or the team or that they are not comfortable with $KSM payments, unfortunately that is what exists today in this network so we would need to work with that.
Technically, some alternatives could be considered and in my opinion it is worth defining whether these are viable options or not:
Setup a multiasset bounty on Kusama holding foreign assets such as stablecoins, although there is also the lack of liquidity and other potentially missing tools to make this happen.
separate refs (audit, fix and trusted setup ceremony) or the use of milestones within the ref with dates for each payment.
The audit was mentioned and scheduled in previous ref several months ago but it is not until recently that new features are in and bigger users are asking for more quality checks and to have an audit report from a reputational part . The audit has been requested for over half a year. not doing it will result in a threat to user funds, nuking the ref will only bite future users in the ass.
Kusama Shield has been leading Kusama Developement of libraries, indexers, public rpc’s, the Kusama Shield stickers were the only kusama project handing out stickers at berlin blockchains week. Kusama Shield seems to be the ONLY project maintaining polkavm smart contract zk code. Majority of new projects that want to do zk on kusama has looked at the MIT licensed opensource code Kusama Shield has published as a base. This statement is wrong, bringing more features to a partly treasury funded projects, features that Kusama Treasury never has paid for, Kusama’s shielded pool is the first option, the user gets prompted with.
Could you point out other projects that are actively building ZK projects on Kusama that is currently maintaining libs and infra for the chain? It’s a very thin list of projects that are building, knee caping an audit that will benefit kusama ah users is not the right approach for long term sustainability.
It’s a net good for the entire ecosystem that support for not just Kusama but for Polkadot and Paseo is also added and maintained without extra burden to the treasury
This will result in having to select a new auditor, renogitating the price. and we may not see a similar audit this year, this is not realistic and will most likely result in some random whale naying it last minute, as the proposal has been adapted based on Feedback
