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Seraphis is an up and coming potential upgrade for Monero, but what are some of the major and minor pros and cons of this upgrade?

The only ones I know of are being able to create a view wallet where one can see incoming and outgoing transactions, a big deal imo. The new address format might prove problematic, but what are the proposed solutions to this?

Patoshi パトシ
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1 Answers1

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The following assumes the Seraphis upgrade is accompanied by the Jamtis addressing scheme.

Pros:

  • Massive improvement in ring size (privacy improvement).
  • Increased modularity of transaction protocol (easier upgrades in the future).
  • New wallet tier allowing full view-only wallet functionality without spend key. 1
  • New wallet tier allowing fast light wallet syncing with greater privacy than existing solutions.1
  • New address scheme adds first-class support for embedded signatures to prevent man-in-the-middle attacks.1
  • Wallets will synchronize much faster thanks to view tags and other performance enhancements.
  • New seed format (Polyseed) will be 16 words and will embed the wallet restore height, streamlining user experience.2

Cons:

  • New wallet tiers add complexity.1
  • Users will need to generate new addresses.
  • New addresses are longer.1
  • Transactions will be slightly larger.
  • New seed format may confuse users restoring older seeds (however, older seeds will still work). 2

Overall, it is very clear to me that this is a massive step forwards for Monero and its users. Better privacy, better performance, and a better user experience after the dust has settled.

Edit: I have been corrected, view tags are not part of Seraphis. They will be implemented sooner.

1 Specific to Jamtis, not necessarily Saraphis.

2 Not specific to Jamtis or Seraphis, but will likely gain traction as part of the same update.

BusyBoredom
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  • whats a rough estimate of when this might get implemented? – Patoshi パトシ Feb 07 '22 at 17:26
  • "view tags" are nothing to do with Seraphis. Neither is the new seed format really. – jtgrassie Feb 07 '22 at 18:00
  • Oh good catch on the view tags, thank you, I corrected it. I mention the seed format because it's lumped in with Jamtis in the Jamtis gist, so I think it fits as part of the overall upgrade. – BusyBoredom Feb 07 '22 at 21:33
  • @BusyBoredom the proposed address scheme (Jamtis) is not part of Seraphis. Sure, Seraphis makes new wallet types (tiers) possible (and requires a new address scheme), but Jamtis (the address scheme), whilst devised with Seraphis in mind, could be applied to some other protocol. In addition, Polyseed (the seed format/encoding I refer to) is again separate from Seraohis and Jamtis; it could be used right now if we wanted. – jtgrassie Feb 08 '22 at 03:40
  • Fair enough @jtgrassie. I was lumping them together because from a user's perspective they're part of the same update, but I will edit my post to clarify. – BusyBoredom Feb 09 '22 at 04:05
  • @BusyBoredom "because from a user's perspective they're part of the same update" they're not though. Polyseed (and view-tags) do not need to come in the same update as Seraphis. Neither does Jamtis really. – jtgrassie Feb 09 '22 at 04:11
  • I understand they are only happening at the same time because Seraphis needs a new addressing scheme anyway. I apologize for associating them too strongly, I was trying to simplify my answer and I see that I simplified too much. Is my most recent edit sufficient in your eyes? – BusyBoredom Feb 09 '22 at 04:17