We’ve got some ground to cover this update, so let’s start with the project of the moment, Tari Universe.

Tari Universe

Tor Bridges

We’ve introduced Tor bridge functionality to Tari Universe. Tor bridges are particularly useful in environments where Tor is restricted or users require more security through obscurity than Tor would normally provide. Tari Universe now fetches a list of default bridges from https://bridges.torproject.org/bridges?transport=obfs4, but users can set their addresses as well. This should allow more people to use more of the features of Tari Universe, some of which are dependent on Tor access.

General Fixes and Improvements

• Improved keyring access and methods for the storage of Monero seeds and Tari seed phrases if Tari Universe is denied keyring access, amongst several other scenarios that can be reviewed here
• Unattended auto-updating allows users who want to leave Tari Universe running unattended to automatically download new updates and restart following the update (PR #899)
• Fixes galore: fixing the app freezing upon exit (appropriately assigned to PR #911), issues around the importing of seed words from Windows (PR #895), better monitoring (PR #841), and more.

P2Pool: Current Status

The P2Pool has received much attention the past two weeks, with community contributors measuring pH levels, balancing chemicals, and still finding some time to throw in the occasional pool ring or wave machine

Metaphor aside, we know P2Pool is a necessary and important feature for ensuring that everyone can participate within the Tari network equally and be rewarded for doing so. We understand its potential and ask for your patience a while longer while we get its implementation in Tari Universe right.

The Ootle

While a lot (we mean, a lot) of focus has been on Tari Universe, progress continues at a steady pace on the Ootle. As the layer responsible for supporting all of the digital assets and decentralized apps for the Tari network, these developments, while understated, play a vital role in the overall usefulness of Tari:

• The Tari Indexer has new information tabs in its UI, letting users visualize substates and events on the blockchain. You can view the new sections here
• New features for the Tari Swarm Daemon include the option to auto-mine, and the automatic registration of new templates that have been added to the templates folder following a swarm reset. The daemon allows developers to run a swarm of local nodes and is a key component of being able to test contracts, templates, and the fundamentals of the Ootle layer (PR #1174, PR #1185)
• Implements gossipsub for broadcasting of both mempool and consensus messages on the Ootle, allowing for future extension while streamlining the messaging infrastructure (PR #1156)
• Improved participation incentives by introducing a configurable setting to suspend validator nodes that fail to participate in several consecutive rounds, with the ability to rejoin once they’ve participated in five sets of voting rounds
• Introduced a trickle-in mechanism for new validator nodes, reducing consensus lockup in the event of a large number of validator nodes waiting on registration each epoch (PR #1182)

Minotari

A host of improvements and additions have been added to Minotari:

• We’ve added the option to configure multiple DNS servers for improved resilience. By default, Cloudflare, Google, and Quad9’s DNS servers are provided, and Tari will cycle through them if one is unable to respond (PR #6629)
• Alignment of the mobile wallet recovery process to match that of the console wallet: the mobile wallet now works with a list of base nodes, rather than a single peer. (PR #6636)
• Improved wallet base node connectivity by introducing a cool-down between base node connection attempts to the same node when multiple nodes are available in the base node peer manager. (Link)