Nimbus aims to be a [sharding](https://github.com/ethereum/wiki/wiki/Sharding-FAQ) client implementation for the Ethereum Blockchain Application Platform. Because the largest deployment of Ethereum will potentially be on embedded systems, Nimbus will be designed to perform well on IoT and personal mobile devices, including older smartphones with resource-restricted hardware. The extensible, configurable, and modular design of Nimbus will make it production ready for Web 3.0 and will ensure that it can be supported and maintained across all goals of Ethereum 2.0.
2. Create an implementation team for the [Applied Research Objectives](https://hackmd.io/s/HkLkj55yb#objectives-in-applied-research) of [Ethereum Research](http://ethereumresearch.org/) (aka Ethereum Asia Pacific Limited), with focus on the following:
4. Pledge to participate in, help implement, and conform to the [Ethereum Improvement Proposal](https://github.com/ethereum/EIPs/blob/master/EIPS/eip-1.md).
6. Focus on production-ready [Web 3.0](https://medium.com/@matteozago/why-the-web-3-0-matters-and-you-should-know-about-it-a5851d63c949) Stack ([Whisper](https://github.com/ethereum/wiki/wiki/Whisper), [PSS](https://github.com/nolash/psstalk/blob/master/README.md), and [Swarm](https://swarm-guide.readthedocs.io/en/latest/introduction.html)) and its ongoing research and development.
[Nim](https://nim-lang.org/) is an efficient, general-purpose systems programming language with a Python-like syntax that compiles to C. Nim will allow us to implement Ethereum rapidly and to take advantage of the mature C-language tooling: in compilation of machine code, and in the analysis of static code.
We believe that the largest successful deployment of Ethereum will reside on embedded systems: IoT devices and mobile personal devices, such as smartphones. Although Nimbus will support archival nodes, its first implementation will be as a light client, with focus on Proof of Stake and sharding.
Existing implementations of Ethereum have focused on desktop computers and servers. These implementations have played a major role in the initial success of Ethereum, and they are suitable for full and archival nodes. However, their deployment onto embedded systems has been an afterthought.
In addition, throughout the development of Status, we have found that the dominant Ethereum implementations, Geth and Parity, are unsuitable for our target platform unless they are profiled and optimised (in progress).
During the deployment of Status among 40,000 alpha testers, we found that a significant portion (23.6%) of users were still running old mobile devices. In addition, recently discovered [Spectre vulnerabilities](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spectre_(security_vulnerability)) have led to an increase in the demand for open processors. For these reasons, we propose a self-imposed constraint and a requirement that Status perform well on the following:
1. 2014 [SoC](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_on_a_chip) architectures, such as the [Cortex-A53](https://developer.arm.com/products/processors/cortex-a/cortex-a53) (Samsung Note 4 & [Raspberry Pi 3](https://www.raspberrypi.org/products/raspberry-pi-3-model-b/)) and the Apple A8 (iPhone 6)
When the 2020 scalability goal is fully realised, this constraint will help ensure that Ethereum runs performantly on resource-restricted hardware that is at least 6 years old.
Nimbus is committed to open standards and to maintaining consensus with other Ethereum-compliant implementations. The development of Nimbus and the changes in its protocols will follow [the EIP process](https://github.com/ethereum/EIPs/).
Access to shards and mainchain state should be fast and responsive, the application binary should be lightweight in terms of the resources used, and the client should be dependable and robust against crashes.
One unsolved hurdle faced by Status is the [LGPLv3](https://opensource.org/licenses/LGPL-3.0) license, whose requirement for runtime linking is incompatible with major mobile app distribution channels, such as the App Store of Apple Inc.
Numerous requests for a static-linking exception have gone unanswered. This has blocked the deployment of any legally sound, full Ethereum client on popular channels for distribution of mobile devices. LGPL also prevents the adoption of Ethereum on closed hardware platforms, such as XBox. Still, we remain optimistic this issue will be rectified.
In addition to the implementation, Nimbus will have a biweekly process for reporting development-related updates. A technical writer will document implementation efforts and translate ongoing research discussions into articles easily understood by the community.
To entice the community to accelerate the development, we will attach bounties to and [publish](https://openbounty.status.im/app#/) the tasks that can be self-contained and defined clearly.
Timelines are approximate and affected by research, implementation considerations, and revisions made while the team produces a detailed implementation timeline.
As an initial goal, we will focus on implementing all components required for interoperability with the Ethereum ecosystem. We will publish these components as independently reusable modules and libraries.
However, before starting the implementation in Nim, we will develop an understanding of the existing implementations of Ethereum: [Go Ethereum](https://github.com/ethereum/go-ethereum/), [Pyethereum](https://github.com/ethereum/pyethereum), [Py-EVM](https://github.com/ethereum/py-evm), and [Parity](https://github.com/paritytech/parity).
An independent security partner will continuously perform a security audit on the Nimbus codebase. We will also adopt frequent reviews of code, testing with automated fuzzing frameworks, and other practices that enhance security. In addition, we will develop a Nim-optimized fuzzing framework and will release it for use by the community at large.
We will set and advertise the bounties as soon as the P2P layer gets implemented. The core team will start working on this in July, unless already completed.
1. Make Nimbus the leading platform for conducting research into the scalability aspects of Whisper and PSS. We consider this a key requirement for implementing a fully decentralised Status messaging platform within the Ethereum network.
2. Deliver easy-to-use APIs for conducting large-scale and small-scale experiments within the network.
We will optimize the architecture of Nimbus for implementing the [LES protocol](https://github.com/ethereum/wiki/wiki/Light-client-protocol). We will also optimize all internal state-handling operations such that they work efficiently and asynchronously. This will enable on-demand fetching of data from the network. This will also ensure that Nimbus runs with a high degree of concurrency and that the client UI is responsive.
We will focus on achieving compatibility with all other clients. In addition, we will implement an [eWASM](https://github.com/ewasm/design/blob/master/README.md) runtime and will add Nim as one of the languages that can target the new VM.
The team will closely follow the development of [Casper](https://blockgeeks.com/guides/ethereum-casper/) and will try to achieve and maintain compatibility with the existing Casper deployments.
We will set and advertise the bounties as soon as the P2P layer gets implemented. The core team will start working on this in January, unless already completed.
3. Support for a virtual file-system interface for accessing web content published on SwarmSupport for a virtual file-system interface for accessing web content published on Swarm
[SHH](https://gist.github.com/gluk256/9812e59ed0481050350a11308ada4096), [PSS](https://gist.github.com/zelig/d52dab6a4509125f842bbd0dce1e9440), [Swarm](https://github.com/ethersphere/swarm), [LES](https://github.com/ethereum/wiki/wiki/Light-client-protocol), [Stateless Clients](https://nordicapis.com/defining-stateful-vs-stateless-web-services/), Sharding, [Plasma](https://plasma.io/), [State Channels](https://blog.stephantual.com/what-are-state-channels-32a81f7accab). For now, we can ignore all but LES and Sharding.
3. DB: Most implementations of Ethereum use [LevelDB](https://github.com/google/leveldb). Parity has a DB abstraction and uses [HashDB](https://github.com/NPS-DEEP/hashdb/wiki) and [RocksDB](https://rocksdb.org/docs/getting-started.html).
RocksDB is an interesting choice, because it solves the issues that have troubled leveldb. Rocksdb also has a [light version](https://github.com/facebook/rocksdb/blob/master/ROCKSDB_LITE.md) for mobile usage; it's in C++, which would be an issue only if we go for pure C.
6. Encryption library is a little unclear. [Libgcrypt](https://www.gnupg.org/software/libgcrypt/index.html) has everything we need but might be problematic from the standpoint of LGPL licensing. If we have an abstraction for Libgcrypt, we could use it now and swap it out later for something more permissive.
Alternatively, we could roll out our own library. However, implementing our own encryption would not be a great idea, and our version would have to be audited and tested. Suggestions are welcome.
