Nockchain
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Nockchain is the lightweight chain
for heavyweight compute.

Nockchain Wallet and Genesis Details

Two announcements

This week, we shipped the Nockchain wallet and details about our planned genesis block. If you missed either announcement on X, this newsletter has everything you need to know! (You might want to follow us on X, too, though this newsletter will always ship aggregate updates of anything crucial).

As of this writing, we're still targeting Monday, May 19 for launch of the Nockchain dumbnet.

Nockchain Wallet Is Live

On Wednesday, we announced the first version of the Nockchain Wallet, now available in the GitHub repository. Developers can immediately pull the latest changes to generate keys and connect to their Nockchain instances.

Our wallet is modeled after Bitcoin hierarchical deterministic wallets, with standard tooling for importing and exporting BIP39 seed phrases. But with a few modifications.

  • Curve Adaptation: Our wallet replaces the standard secp256k1 curve with Cheetah, a prime-order, 255-bit curve optimized specifically for STARK-friendly proofs (eprint.iacr.org/2022/277). This swap makes verifying Schnorr signatures in ZKPs extremely fast while maintaining compatibility with standard HD wallet tooling.
  • SLIP-10 Integration: Using an approach inspired by SLIP-10, we've generalized BIP-32's proven UX, allowing seamless integration of Cheetah without disrupting standard derivation paths or hardened/non-hardened key branches. Users retain familiar xpub-style watch-only addresses, simplifying key audits and security oversight.

For a detailed walkthrough of commands, please refer to the article or the GitHub repository.

Nockchain’s Genesis Block: Ensuring a Verifiably Fair Launch

This morning, we announced details around how we intend to make the Nockchain launch verifiably fair. Transparency and fairness at genesis are obviously foundational, so it must be proven rather than asserted.

Accordingly, our genesis block will include a few important characteristics:

  • No coinbase reward will be issued for the genesis block. This ensures the complete supply of $NOCK tokens will be fairly distributed to miners who legitimately win subsequent blocks.
  • The genesis block will explicitly commit to a specific Bitcoin block height. We will publicly announce this Bitcoin block height prior to launch, allowing anyone to independently verify timing. At the moment of launch, the genesis block will embed the exact Bitcoin block header (hash) corresponding to that height, proving it was mined no earlier.
  • The genesis block will contain a secret message. All nodes watching for the genesis block have the hash of that message so they can verify the Genesis block contains the proper message.
  • The genesis block will contain a Zero-Knowledge Proof of Work where the block commitments commit to all of the above.

Taken together, these commitments should ensure a fair, transparent, and publicly verifiable launch of Nockchain—without anyone having to trust us.

We'll continue to keep you posted as we near our intended launch date of May 19!

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