A review of the Working Groups

[depinmaxi]

A previous post elaborated on the various working groups contributing to the Marlin protocol. This post aims to share updates to the structure of the working groups and their priorities. It is hoped that posting on the forum as opposed to the blog will make it easier for contributors to follow major updates from other groups on a more regular basis.

Structure

The groups that are currently active include:

1. Oyster (Oyster | Offchain services powered by TEEs)
2. Kalypso (Kalypso | The ZK proof marketplace)
3. Applications (test cases)
4. Monitoring and visualizations (https://hub.marlin.org)
5. Orchestrator (dedicated chain/rollup/L3 for Marlin)
6. Commons (tooling, primarily around TEEs)

The Kalypso group spun out of the Applications group as details of the ZK prover marketplace became clearer. Similarly, as gas prices on Arbitrum seem unviable for Oyster and Kalypso in the long term, the priority for the erstwhile Clusters & Gateways groups (which were to be dissolved after the Marlin Relay merged with Oyster) has turned to figuring a cheap settlement and orchestration solution. It is called the Orchestration group.

Highlights

Notable updates from each group:

1. Oyster

• On-chain attestations are live (repo)
• Access to networking is available (setup, TCP proxy, raw proxy)
• Additionally, TLS connections are possible (requires custom configs in addtion to caddy)
• Secure channels can be established using attestations (repo)
• Functions can now be deployed on Serverless (Executor, Gateway, Billing, Control Plane)
• Preliminary tests of SGX/TDX have been successful

2. Kalypso

• Enclave image to deploy the matching engine on Oyster
• Templates for provers and verifiers

3. Applications

• Reproducible builds works (relevant script)
• AI models have been benchmarked on Oyster against zkML libraries (sample image)
• Tested a MEV relay inside Oyster, but with a full node outside the TEE

4. Gateways

• Added Prysm gateway

5. Monitoring and visualizations

• New marlin.org homepage
• Launch of hub.marlin.org
• Specs for monitoring protocol for Oyster

6. Orchestrator

• A TEE-based node that can log and route requests is already live

7. Commons

• Tooling to develop applications on Oyster Serverless
• Helper tool to easily build enclave images
• SDK for apps to interact with Kalypso

Integrations that likely benefited from these features:

• Private AI on Verida - repo
• teeML for Hyle’s Vibe Check
• AI agents on Naptha, Autonolas
• Decentralized frontends with 3DNS, SpaceID and Bonfida
• Morpheus AI agents
• LLMs on Flock
• IPFS gateway
• eth.limo gateway
• Avail Wallet on Aleo
• Circuits/zk applications written in Noir, SP1
• Payments on zkBOB

Current priorities

Based on the information available at this moment, the current priorities of the different groups are mentioned below:

1. Oyster

• Subscriptions for periodic requests - Q3
• Enabling multiple job environments - Q3
• Ability to update enclave while maintaining IP - Q3
• File caching for serverless execution - Q3
• Support for SGX/TDX in smart contracts in addition to Nitro - Q4
• Faster networking (Tuna image) - Q4
• Scaling TDX with H100s - Q4
• Sandboxing support - Q4
• Verification of certificate extensions for Nitro - Q4
• Bootstrapping Oyster verifier nodes - Q4
• Improve local debug process for enclaves - Q4
• Replicate enclave environment within docker - Q4
• Implementing the monitoring protocol - Q1 2025
• Support cross builds with enclave builder - Q1 2025
• Expand the options of compute tiers on Serverless - Q1 2025
• Implementing auto scaling - Q2 2025
• Design of APIs if TDX & Nitro are combined - Q2 2025

2. Kalypso

• Design of staking contracts - Q3
• Symbiotic and possibly Mellow integration - Q3
• Implementation of monitoring protocol - Q4
• Update Kalypso to be mechanism agnostic in order to support auctions - Q4
• Refactoring Kalypso codebase - Q4
• All-in-one tooling to prepare enclaves given prover/IVS binaries/executables - Q4
• Add fault tolerance to the matching engine - Q1 2025
• Auto scaling the matching engine - Q1 2025
• Elegantly create submarkets when proof generation can be split - Q1 2025
• Coordination between multiple matching engines - Q2 2025

3. Applications

• Implementing the Oyster bridge for Kalypso - Q3
• Implementing a credits system for Oyster - Q3
• Deploying Oyster contracts on Monad - Q4
• Shared instances for easy deployments of decentralized frontends - Q4
• Module to easily deploy NodeJS and Python apps - Q4
• Implement the current relay network as an app on Oyster - Q1 2025

4. Monitoring and visualizations

• Improve the dashboards for Oyster & Kalypso - Q3/4

5. Orchestrator

• Run reth inside Oyster - Q4
• Figure a secure way to bridge tokens - Q4

6. Commons

• Enclave image to verify attestations - Q3
• Enabling TLS for enclave to enclave communication - Q3
• Basic storage design for Oyster - Q4
• TDX related tooling - Q4
• Integrate Oyster with terraform and other infra management tools - Q4
• Libraries for programatic deployment of instances/serverless - Q4
• Simplify setting up secret keys within enclaves - Q4

Some open problems for which no clear solution exists but worth exploring due to their significance:

• Open architectures for TEEs
• Using PUFs as a source of entropy
• Preventing DDoS on decentralized frontends
• Running a MEV relay inside Oyster with a full node inside the TEE (light client still requires a RPC which adds to latency)

[depinmaxi]

Sharing some updates on major developments in the past few months:

• Oyster
  • In place enclave updates while maintaining the same IP
  • Tuna images (code)
  • Control plane hardening (code)
  • Serverless subscriptions (code)
  • Serverless job environments (code)
• Applications
  • Credits prototypes (code)
  • Reproducible builds using Docker (e.g. docs)
  • Log streaming (code)
  • Oyster.chat, a frontend for ollama based AI chat bot (frontend, secure_proxy, docs)
  • Deployed Naptha nodes within Oyster CVMs so that AI agents can be run securely within CVMs (node_setup)
• Commons
  • Attestation verification enclave image (code)
  • Secure channels for communication between enclaves (code)

[depinmaxi]

As we approach the year end, sharing some latest updates as AI agents gain momentum:

• Oyster
  • Reproducible builds using Nix (code, docs)
  • Debug mode (code)
  • Bulk transaction sender library (code)
• Applications
  • Docker based enclave deployment
  • Developed Teefetch enabling verifiable HTTPS communication (github)
  • Deployed Olas agents within Oyster CVMs to showcase agent developers the advantages of running agents within CVMs (enclave, olas agent)
  • Worked with Verida team to deploy its services within Oyster CVM (integration)
  • SP1 Proof generation within enclave (integration, integration_groth)
  • Developed an Eliza plugin which is listed as part of the Eliza plugin repository (plugin)
• Commons
  • ZK attestation verifier for cheap verification in solidity (code)
  • Serverless tooling (code)
• Monitoring and Visualization
  • UI for visualizing logs from enclaves

[depinmaxi]

Given it’s the start of the year, it’s a good time to revisit priorities for the coming quarters.

1. Oyster CVMs

• CLI tool for easy deployments - Q1, Q2
• Native axum integration with secure channels - Q1
• KMS implementation for persistent secrets - Q1
• Native credits integration - Q2
• TDX prototype - Q2
• Attestation verification network - Q3
• TDX base image - Q3
• TDX attestation verification - Q3
• Market v2 with TDX support - Q4
• TDX integration with CLI tooling - Q4

2. Oyster Serverless

• Testnet deployment of v2 - Q1
• Mainnet deployment of v2 - Q2
• Staking design - Q2
• Serverless CLI - Q2, Q3
• Secret store - Q3
• Staking implementation - Q3
• Expand supported chains - Q4
• Expand supported environments - Q4

3. Applications

• Deploy applications using a standard enclave image - Q1
• Initialization parameters - Q1
• Local development environment - Q2
• Native credits integration - Q2
• Support Rena to integrate Oyster CVM - Q2
• Decentralized frontends managed by contracts - Q3

4. Monitoring and visualizations

• Attestation verification UI - Q1
• Custom indexer for easy deployment to different chains - Q1
• Serverless UI - Q2, Q3
• TDX UI - Q3, Q4

Research:

• GPU TEEs
• Serverless GPUs

[depinmaxi]

The year started well. Lot many integrations were accomplished this past quarter! Sharing some key updates below.

• Oyster CVMs

  • CLI tool for easy deployments (code, docs)
  • Axum integration with Scallop (code)
  • KMS implementation (code, docs)

• Oyster Serverless

  • V2 deployment on testnet (docs)

• Applications

  • Blue enclave images (code, docs)
  • Initialization params (code, docs)
  • Deployed Olas agents within Oyster CVMs to showcase agent developers the advantages of running agents within CVMs (enclave, olas agent)
  • Worked with Verida team to deploy its services within Oyster CVM (integration)
  • Worked with Pryv team to enable private AI assistants (integration)
  • Risc0 (integration)
  • Deployed Chromia chat agent on Oyster CVM (integration)
  • Developed a PoC to showcase how encumbered Twitter agents can act independently (docs)

• Monitoring and Visualization

  • Attestation verification UI (link, docs)
  • Custom indexer for easy deployment to different chains (code)