Originally published on HackMD.

Highlights

  • RMS24 specification and reference implementation complete. Keewoo finished the RMS24 spec with keyword PIR extension and optimizations, using a unified Python specification language for defining PIR scheme primitives. The spec serves as source of truth for agent-assisted production implementations.

  • Multi-engine PIR architecture defined. Established the sharded PIR design: different PIR engines for different data slices (hot mutable state, full state with proofs, immutable logs, archival data), each tuned for size and access profile. Clients query all engines asynchronously — bottlenecked only by the slowest engine they actually need.

  • PAPs launched. Released Privacy Acceleration Proposals — microgrant-funded proposals designed to accelerate privacy-related tooling and research. Adopting a lean, iterative micro-grant approach for surgical 1–2 week tasks.

  • Tor Project collaboration. Initiated hands-on collaboration with the Tor Project to embed Arti in browsers. Evaluating two paths: refining webtor-rs vs. making the real arti-client compile to WASM. Pull requests submitted and review cycles underway.

  • ethers.js integration. Submitted a PR to integrate tor-js into ethers.js, enabling wallets to route RPC calls through Tor with minimal code changes.

  • Spotlight video series. Started coordination with EcoDev Digital Studio on a privacy spotlight video series.

Progress by Workstream

PIR for Ethereum State

  • RMS24 spec and reference implementation completed with keyword PIR extension
  • GPU acceleration benchmarked — DPF-based approach fits entire Ethereum state in GPU memory, though cost remains high (~$500K server for 100 TPS at current performance)
  • Seoul National University group identified as working on GPU acceleration of insPIRe; open to collaboration
  • Data slicing strategy defined: different frontends (wallets, light clients, tax software) have different latency/data requirements aligned to different PIR schemes
  • Sharded PIR system design sketched with multi-dataset, multi-engine architecture

TorJS / Embedded Arti

  • Weekly alignment calls with Tor Project established
  • Arti patches submitted for WebAssembly compatibility
  • WebRTC peer discovery component demonstrated
  • ethers.js and viem SDK integrations advancing

Verifiable UBT

  • UBT conversion running on local chain; mainnet sync being set up
  • Three debug RPCs implemented: debug_getUBTState, debug_executionWitnessUBT, debug_getUBTProof
  • OpenVM selected as initial zkVM proving backend (GPU prover)
  • Architecture decoupled: UBT state conversion, RPC serving, and proving (Keeper) operate independently

Ecosystem & Acceleration

  • PAPs published and open for proposals
  • Coordination initiated with teams working on FHE, GPU acceleration, and PIR
  • An external RPC provider expressed interest in experimenting with PIR deployment

Looking Ahead to February

  1. Publish the sharded PIR system design
  2. Resolve the Arti WASM compilation path — aim for end-to-end functionality
  3. Resolve UBT-Geth synchronization edge cases at the ~3M block threshold
  4. Engage first PAP micro-grant recipient for PIR scheme analysis