What is the status of auditibility and how will it change with the move to stark addresses? I’m new to this project but I think it is the only privacy coin with auditibility, which is very important and one of the reasons for bitcoin’s success over monero.
Also, is my understanding correct that burned coins can be minted at any time and to different addresses? So eg if I have 10 Firo in 1 address, I could burn them now and mint 1 Firo to 10 different addresses over the next few years?
Auditability is a spectrum. If your definition is being able to see amounts without relying on cryptographic proofs, that will be lost. This is expected as we approach higher levels of privacy as some auditability is sacrificed.
In Spark, a transparent address system will be retained so incoming and outgoing into the private pool can still be seen. Spark depends on balance proofs (inputs equal outputs) and range proofs (no negative or infinite values) to prevent inflation. If the well established cryptographic proofs are sound then it is auditable.
Yes, you’re understanding regarding burned coins is correct. Just remember to minus the transaction fees. Note that if we are switching privacy technology there might be a need to bring back the private balances into the transparent layer and re-burn them into the new tech private balance (see discussion in “How should we transition from Lelantus to Lelantus Spark?”)
Doesn’t the current Lelantus implementation require cryptographic proofs for the burn and mint?
I’m thinking about the prior episode in Firo in which someone made a few hundred thousand coins, the 2 inflation bugs in bitcoin, and I think one in monero, and the ability to identify it quickly in Firo lelantus vs. lelantus spark.
Yes current Lelantus requires cryptographic proofs for burn and mint but the output amounts are always transparent but change amounts and source amounts are hidden.
Auditability is always a trade off with privacy which is why we had approached it in stages. We’ll be doing a turnstile to migrate the Lelantus funds over to Spark which would audit the supply at that point in time.
With the transparent layer still in force, the total spends cannot exceed the shielded amount and we think it’s unlikely at this point in time for exchanges to support Spark addresses meaning you need to unshield to spend at least until the ecosystem catches up.