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Seraphis is an up and coming potential upgrade for Monero, but what are some of the major and minor pros and cons of this upgrade?

The only ones I know of are being able to create a view wallet where one can see incoming and outgoing transactions, a big deal imo. The new address format might prove problematic, but what are the proposed solutions to this?

Patoshi パトシ
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1 Answers1

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The following assumes the Seraphis upgrade is accompanied by the Jamtis addressing scheme.

Pros:

  • Massive improvement in ring size (privacy improvement).
  • Increased modularity of transaction protocol (easier upgrades in the future).
  • New wallet tier allowing full view-only wallet functionality without spend key. 1
  • New wallet tier allowing fast light wallet syncing with greater privacy than existing solutions.1
  • New address scheme adds first-class support for embedded signatures to prevent man-in-the-middle attacks.1
  • Wallets will synchronize much faster thanks to view tags and other performance enhancements.
  • New seed format (Polyseed) will be 16 words and will embed the wallet restore height, streamlining user experience.2

Cons:

  • New wallet tiers add complexity.1
  • Users will need to generate new addresses.
  • New addresses are longer.1
  • Transactions will be slightly larger.
  • New seed format may confuse users restoring older seeds (however, older seeds will still work). 2

Overall, it is very clear to me that this is a massive step forwards for Monero and its users. Better privacy, better performance, and a better user experience after the dust has settled.

Edit: I have been corrected, view tags are not part of Seraphis. They will be implemented sooner.

1 Specific to Jamtis, not necessarily Saraphis.

2 Not specific to Jamtis or Seraphis, but will likely gain traction as part of the same update.

BusyBoredom
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