
MAGIC Grants has offered its Undergraduate Cryptocurrency Scholarship program since 2019. Our scholarship is often the first time that the student is rewarded for their passion in cryptocurrencies.

MAGIC Grants is fundraising for the $6,000 that we issue annually. Three undergraduate student recipients will receive $2,000 each at the beginning of the Fall 2025 academic year.

Help us continue this program that rewards students for being passionate about cryptocurrencies!

Learn more: [https://magicgrants.org/scholarships/](https://magicgrants.org/scholarships/)


Support our 2025 scholarship for undergraduate students who are interested in cryptocurrencies.

2025 Undergraduate Scholarships


MAGIC Grants has contracted [Veridise](https://veridise.com) to assist with the following:

1. An assessment of the suitability of the Helios/Selene curve pair for use in FCMP++.
2. Manual review and formal verification of the helioselene library.

We are raising funds to cover the costs of these projects.

## Assessment of Helios/Selene Pair

Veridise will provide a detailed assessment on the security and suitability of the Helios/Selene curve pair for use in FCMP++. The list below breaks down of the work to be conducted into logical portions:

* Detailed analysis of the overall curve generation scheme, assessment of suitability of SafeCurves criteria and other alternatives given the intended use, evaluation of weight of various criteria according to the desired security requirements.
* Verification of the rigidity of the scheme to ensure curves are not manipulable.
* In-depth analysis of relevance and potential security implications of SafeCurves criteria that are not satisfied in the particular context of intended use. More precisely, analysis of the following:
  * Security implications of the small absolute discriminant
  * Various potential attacks and vulnerabilities through lack of twist security
  * ECC security implications of deviations of ladder and completeness criteria of SafeCurves, taking into account the intended use case and the used formulas, algorithms and point representations
* Preparation of a detailed report of above analysis including wider context and background.

## Manual Review and Formal Verification

Manual encoding of the below functions into an SMT-compatible encoding:

* field.rs
* red256
* red512
* pow
* invert (extended binary gcd)
* sqrt
* point.rs
* add
* double
* mul
* from_bytes
* to_bytes


Help MAGIC Grants recover Monero FCMP++ security review costs.

Monero FCMP++ Helioselene Library Review and Curve Analysis with Veridise


### Funded Goal: 220 XMR (86 XMR contributed from MAGIC Monero Fund general fund)

### Start: June 2023

### End: September 2023

### Result: [Research paper](/pdf/Borggren-Sept-2023-Probing-the-Attacks-on-the-Privacy-of-the-Monero-Blockchain.pdf)

The EAE (Eve-Alice-Eve) attack is a threat to Monero user privacy. When a Monero user sends and/or receives funds repeatedly with an entity (Eve) that aims to trace funds, enough information in the local transaction graph and ring signatures may be available to make a probabalistic guess about the true destination or source of funds. There are different names for this attack and related attacks, which mostly differ in how many colluding entities are involved and how much information they may possess: EABE, poisoned outputs, Overseer, Flashlight, Tainted Dust, and Knacc attacks. One of the videos of the Breaking Monero series [discusses the EAE attack in detail](https://www.monerooutreach.org/breaking-monero/poisoned-outputs.html).

The EAE attack has been a concern of the Monero Research Lab for years, but rigorous measurement of the possible risk of this attack and possible defenses against it have not been successfully researched. "Churning", the practice of users sending funds to themselves, has been suggested as a possible defense, but neither its effectiveness nor details about best churning procedures have been determined by research to date.

Dr. Nathan Borggren has stepped up to investigate these important research questions about how to best protect Monero user privacy. Dr. Borggren is lead author of two papers about possible statistical threats to Monero user privacy: Borggren & Yao (2020) ["Correlations of Multi-input Monero Transactions"](https://moneroresearch.info/index.php?action=resource_RESOURCEVIEW_CORE&id=57) and Borggren et al. (2020) ["Simulated Blockchains for Machine Learning Traceability and Transaction Values in the Monero Network"](https://moneroresearch.info/index.php?action=resource_RESOURCEVIEW_CORE&id=58). His work analyzing transparent blockchains includes Borggren et al. (2017) "Deanonymizing Shapeshift: Linking Transactions Across Multiple Blockchains" and Borggren (2017) "Deep Learning of Entity Behavior in the Bitcoin Economy".

Dr. Borggren has proposed using Topological Data Analysis and Bayesian statistical methods to analyze the EAE attack and related attacks on Monero user privacy. The false positive and false negative rate of the EAE attack will be investigated through simulations and possibly analysis of Monero's mainnet blockchain. The full details of the plan are in [the research proposal](https://github.com/MAGICGrants/Monero-Fund/blob/main/projects/borggren_research-MAGIC-submission.pdf).

> "I think that the EAE attack is one of Monero's biggest _practical_ attack surfaces currently, and I see value in quantification plus real world data-informed best practices."

&mdash; [isthmus](https://github.com/Mitchellpkt), Monero Research Lab researcher and lead author of ["Fingerprinting a flood: Forensic statistical analysis of the mid-2021 Monero transaction volume anomaly"](https://mitchellpkt.medium.com/fingerprinting-a-flood-forensic-statistical-analysis-of-the-mid-2021-monero-transaction-volume-a19cbf41ce60)

> "Borggren has previously released fascinating papers quantifying Monero privacy pitfalls and I'm excited he is looking to continue."

&mdash; [ACK-J](https://github.com/ACK-J), author of ["Lord of the Rings: An Empirical Analysis of Monero's Ring Signature Resilience to Artifically Intelligent Attacks"](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ACK-J/Monero-Dataset-Pipeline/main/Lord_of_the_Rings__An_Empirical_Analysis_of_Monero_s_Ring_Signature_Resilience_to_Artificially_Intelligent_Attacks.pdf)


The EAE attack is one of Monero's privacy weak points. Churning may be a solution.

Research to Defeat EAE Attack and Analyze Effectiveness of Churning Procedures


### Funded goal: 28,800 USD

### Start: February 2024
### End: July 2024
### Result:  Development Milestones [1](https://github.com/MAGICGrants/Monero-Fund/issues/27), [2](https://github.com/MAGICGrants/Monero-Fund/issues/29), and [3](https://github.com/MAGICGrants/Monero-Fund/issues/31)

vtnerd (Lee Clagett) is the author of [Monero-LWS](https://github.com/vtnerd/monero-lws), and has been a [contributor to the Monero codebase since 2016](https://github.com/monero-project/monero/pulls?page=7&q=is%3Apr+author%3Avtnerd+created%3A%3E2016-10-01). He is a veteran of four CCS proposals; [[1]](https://ccs.getmonero.org/proposals/vtnerd-tor-tx-broadcasting.html), [[2]](https://ccs.getmonero.org/proposals/vtnerd-2020-q4.html), [[3]](https://ccs.getmonero.org/proposals/vtnerd-2021-q1.html), [[4]](https://ccs.getmonero.org/proposals/vtnerd-2023-q3.html)

This proposal funds 480 hours of work, ~3 months. The milestones will be hour based; 160 (1 month), 320 (2 months), 480 (3 months). At the completion of hours, he will provide the Monero Fund committee references to the work that was completed during that timeframe.

Some features that are being targeted in [`monero-project/monero`](https://www.github.com/monero-project/monero) :

- Get new serialization routine merged (work on piecemeal PRs for reviewers sake) (already in-progress)
- Complete work necessary to merge DANE/TLSA in wallet2/epee.
- Adding trust-on-first-use support to wallet2

Work targeted towards [`vtnerd/monero-lws`](https://github.com/vtnerd/monero-lws) :

- Optional full chain verification for malicious daemon attack (already-in progress)
- Webhooks/ZMQ-PUB support for tx sending (watch for unexpected sends)
- ZMQ-pub support for incoming transactions and blocks (notifies of any new transaction or block)
- Implement "horizontal" scaling of account scanning (transfer account info via zmq to another process for scanning)
- Make account creation more "enterprise grade" (currently scanning engine re-starts on every new account creation, and uses non-cacheable memory) \* Unit tests for REST-API
- Create frontend LWS C/C++ library
- Provide official LWS docker-image
- Provide official snap/flatpak/appimge (tbd one or all of those)
- Provide pre-built binaries
- (Unlikely) - reproducible builds so community members can verify+sign the binary hashes
- It is unlikely that all features will be implemented, at which point the unfinished features will roll into the next quarter.


This development work will improve security, performance, and usability with an end goal of helping to broaden the user base. 

vtnerd Monero and Monero-LWS dev work for Q1/Q2 2024


### Funded Goal: 12,000 USD (12,000 USD contributed from MAGIC Monero Fund general fund)

### Start: March 2022

### End: August 2022

### Result: [Research paper](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ACK-J/Monero-Dataset-Pipeline/main/Lord_of_the_Rings__An_Empirical_Analysis_of_Monero_s_Ring_Signature_Resilience_to_Artificially_Intelligent_Attacks.pdf)

ACK-J created a series of Monero transactions using different spend patterns and applied artificial intelligence models to determine the resiliency of ring signatures against these models, absent external information. The MAGIC Monero Fund approved the research grant from its general fund.

The full paper "Lord of the Rings: An Empirical Analysis of Monero's Ring Signature Resilience to Artifically Intelligent Attacks" is available [on the author's GitHub](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ACK-J/Monero-Dataset-Pipeline/main/Lord_of_the_Rings__An_Empirical_Analysis_of_Monero_s_Ring_Signature_Resilience_to_Artificially_Intelligent_Attacks.pdf), along with [the accompanying dataset pipeline](https://github.com/ACK-J/Monero-Dataset-Pipeline).

The transcript of a short inverview with ACK-J discussing the results is [here](https://magicgrants.org/Monero-Tracing-Research/).

## Main results

With 11 ring members, public information on the Monero blockchain could aid an attacker in predicting the true spend of a transaction greater than the random guessing probability of 9% (1/11). With this model, the likelihood of a correct guess grew to 13.3%, a modest increase. Since the data was collected, Monero increased its ring size to 16; thus, the accuracy should now be lower, but we do not have numbers for this.


A test of machine learning attacks on Monero's untraceability.

Ring Signature Resiliency to AI Analysis


Fuzzing is a process of automated testing that intelligently bombards software with random inputs to discover security vulnerabilities and edge cases. Monero has the significant advantage of access to OSS-Fuzz, Google's powerful free computing platform that continuously tests open-source projects. However, our current testing implementation is severely limited, covering merely 10% of the codebase—with zero coverage of the critical RPC interfaces that allow external communication with Monero nodes.

Developing comprehensive fuzzing harnesses for these RPC handlers is essential to protecting Monero's network infrastructure from remote attacks, preserving both user privacy and security of funds. This project directly addresses one of our most significant security blind spots.

The MAGIC Monero Fund selected Ada Logics after soliciting three quotes from various security firms to start development of fuzzing harnesses for monerod. [Ada Logics](https://adalogics.com) is a specialized security firm with deep expertise in fuzzing:

* David Korczynski (CEO) is a top contributor to OSS-Fuzz and holds a PhD from Oxford
* Their team has successfully fuzzed major projects including Docker, Ethereum, and Kubernetes
* They [previously discovered](https://adalogics.com/blog/the-importance-of-continuity-in-fuzzing-cve-2020-28362) a critical vulnerability in Ethereum through fuzzing (CVE-2020-28362)

Ada Logics will:

* Build C++ fuzzing harnesses targeting Monero's RPC handlers within src/rpc.
* Create an end-to-end testing solution for Monero in OSS-Fuzz.
* Target at least 75% of Monero's RPC handlers, with a goal of 100% coverage.
* Submit all code directly to the Monero repository.
* Provide a comprehensive report documenting the approach and findings.

## Timeline

Six weeks of development time across David Korczynski, Adam Korczynski, and Arthur Chan.


This fuzzing project will help protect the Monero network

Fuzzing Harness Development for Monero’s RPC handlers


### Funded Goal: 24,000 USD (5,000 USD contributed from the MAGIC Monero Fund general fund)

### Start: September 2022

### End: August 2022

### Result: [Mainnet beta software release](https://reddit.com/r/Monero/comments/1382rva/ethxmr_atomic_swap_beta_release/)

The MAGIC Monero Fund raised funds for noot to continue development on ETH-XMR atomic swaps. View [the campaign here](https://www.gofundme.com/f/noot-ethxmr-atomic-swap-development-4-months).

This proposal covers 4 months of work focused on the following:

### Relayer support

The current implementation of the protocol requires the ETH-recipient to have some ETH in their claiming account to pay for the transaction fees to claim the swap ETH. However, this is bad for UX and privacy, as users cannot withdraw to fresh ETH accounts.

To allow for users to claim ETH into a fresh account, integration with a relayer service can be implemented. This will allow users to withdraw to a fresh account by paying a small fee to a relayer to submit the transaction on their behalf.

### Ethereum privacy improvements

On the ETH side of the swap, there is no privacy, and which accounts and amounts participating in the swap are visible.

### ERC20 support

To support swaps for ERC20s without hurting liquidity, the swap contract can be integrated with a DEX such as Uniswap to automat-ically swap received ETH for the desired ERC20 token.

### Disk permanence

The current implementation of the swap does not store anything to disk apart from information needed for recovery of swap funds in case of failure. However, there are other components that should be stored to disk and restored upon reload, such as current swap of-fers made, historic swap information, and peer information. This will require a simple key-value database implementation.

### General maintenance and bugfixes

See https://github.com/noot/atomic-swap/issues for open issues on the repo. Issues not covered by the above work are part of this sec-tion. This includes RPC calls and documentation, codebase maintenance, testing, and fixes of any bugs found during testing.


A trustless way to exchange Monero and Ethereum.

ETH<>XMR Atomic Swap Continued Development


### Result: [Research paper](https://magicgrants.org/2024/05/15/Aram-Jivanyan-Curve-Tree-Research.html)

Aram Jivanyan, a researcher with years of research and implementation experience with Firo and Lelantus Spark, is working with MAGIC Grants to conduct six months of additional curve research to improve the privacy of Lelantus Spark.

This research grant was made possible because of the [generous donation](https://magicgrants.org/2022/12/22/200000-Donation-from-Arcadia-for-Firo) to the [MAGIC Firo Fund](https://magicgrants.org/funds/firo) by [Arcadia](https://www.arcadiamgroup.com/).

Before working with MAGIC Grants, Aram did preliminary work to assess the feasibility of this research direction. Following this initial analysis, he is confident that this research project is likely to bring greater anonymity sets to the final Lelantus Spark implementation.

The aim of the further 6-month research is the following:

1. Research the most efficient path forward for implementing paired elliptic curve (relating to secP256k1, secQ256k1, and/or other applicable curves). One direction will be implementation of the curve on C++ based on the existing curve implementation. Another possible direction can be bindings of Rust implementation into our C++ library.

2. Nail down how the membership proofs with curve trees will be integrated into the full lelantus spark design and what should be modified to make them interoperable with other spark components.

3. Design the bulletproof-based circuit for set membership checks and nail the implementation details for coding.

4. Write a new paper which will summarizes all research, findings and design for enabling Scaling Lelantus Spark Anonymity Set with Curve Trees.

The research aims to solve the greatest challenge of Spark which is enabling anonymity sets in the millions. Other privacy cryptocurrency protocols such as Monero's Seraphis could potentially benefit of this research as well.

The funding will also cover the Aram's continuing research on the [Aura voting protocol](https://eprint.iacr.org/2022/543) to improve the paper, work on the implementation design and architecture and improve the preprint to get it submitted to crypto conferences.

Stay updated with the MAGIC Grants and Firo social media accounts for updates on this research project.


Aram Jivanyan, a researcher with years of research and implementation experience with Firo and Lelantus Spark, is working with MAGIC Grants to conduct six months of additional curve research to improve the privacy of Lelantus Spark.

Aram Jivanyan to Research Elliptic Curves


### Result: [Flutter plugin library](https://github.com/cypherstack/flutter_libsparkmobile)

With Firo's Lelantus Spark [mainnet activation on January 18, 2024](https://firo.org/2024/01/18/spark-is-live.html), the MAGIC Firo Fund tasked Stack Wallet last December and January to build a Flutter plugin for Firo's [sparkmobile](https://github.com/firoorg/sparkmobile) library. [This Flutter plugin](https://github.com/cypherstack/flutter_libsparkmobile) makes it easy for Flutter wallet apps to integrate Firo Lelantus Spark, and because it is MIT-licensed, anyone can use the plugin.

Lelantus Spark is an important evolution in Firo's network. Spark transactions within Spark addresses hide the sender, receiver, and amount transferred.


This library will make it easier to build Flutter applications on Firo Lelantus Spark.

Lelantus Spark Flutter Library


MAGIC Grants assisted the Monero community by commissioning a review of the interactive protocol and the R1C3 gadget for FCMP++. The total actual cost after receiving the invoice for this work is $11,750. This was a continuation on the prior Veridise work.


Help MAGIC Grants recover Monero FCMP++ research costs.

Monero FCMP++ Research with Veridise


MAGIC Grants has commissioned Veridise to conduct an audit of the Monero FCMP++ gadgets and circuit. This security audit is necessary to ensure that the gadgets, circuits, and implementation are secure.

This audit is expected to be completed in May 2025. The final report will either prove that the implemented membership proof is a proof for the intended statement or detail the issues faced and any proposed remediations.


Funds

Monero Fund

Firo Fund

Privacy Guides Fund