CKB Dev Log 2026-01-21

[chenyukang]

CKB Light Client

We met some limitations and issues when bringing CKB Light Client to mobile devices.
To resolve these blockers, we have made targeted efforts to support the mobile scenario:

• Native App Support: Adds a native Android app support for CKB Light Client with direct JNI integration. (Link: PR #266)
• SQLite Integration: Introduced support for SQLite as a storage backend for the light client, providing a more lightweight database option for mobile client environments. (Link: PR #267)

CKB-VM

• SHA-2 Algorithm Breakthrough:
  • Optimized SHA256 and SHA512 implementations (located in ckb-vm-contrib/opt-lib) have achieved approximately 2.23× higher performance compared to standard implementations.
  • In specific performance test cases, cycle consumption was reduced from 232 million to 104 million, significantly lowering the cost of executing hash-intensive smart contracts. (Links: PR #40, PR #41)

Cryptography & Quantum Security

• Mainnet Deployment: The Quantum Resistant Lock Script has been successfully deployed to the CKB Mainnet, enhancing the network's resilience against future quantum computing threats. (Link: PR #16)
• SPHINCS⁺ Verification Efficiency:
  • Integrated the optimized SHA-2 library into SPHINCS⁺, resulting in a roughly 40% performance improvement in verification costs across all parameter sets. (Link: Branch quick_sha2)
  • Verification Metrics (Cycle Consumption):
    • sha2-128s: 7.1M | sha2-128f: 20.6M
    • sha2-192s: 9.9M | sha2-192f: 30.5M
    • sha2-256s: 15.4M | sha2-256f: 29.6M

Ecosystem & Technical Support

• Annual Dependency Audit: We have completed the annual security audit on the contract dependency libraries to track the stability of core dependencies.

  We evaluated Secp256k1, mbedTLS, and libecc, all of which had reported security issues in the past year. Since our usage is limited to core cryptographic algorithms (RSA, Secp256k1, Secp256r1), we are not affected. This reinforces the importance of minimizing third-party library usage to essential functionality to reduce risk.

  Secp256k1 and mbedTLS demonstrate strong security practices, performance, and test coverage, and are recommended for future contract development, while libecc is weaker and NOT recommended.

  Finally, recurring issues in C-based libraries suggest prioritizing Rust implementations, such as RustCrypto, whenever possible.

• Fixed some OffCKB Windows bugs: Fix windows node and devnetScript path issue ckb-devrel/offckb#359

CKB Core

• Added support for data and lock field in genesis IssuedCell of the chain spec: spec: support data field in IssuedCell #5079
• Added support for cargo-binstall within CKB to simplify the build and installation process for developers and node operators. (Link: PR #5089)
• Optimized the logging for header synchronization, providing more granular visibility into synchronization timing to help identify potential bottlenecks in the sync process. (Link: PR #5086)

In Pipeline…

• zkVM Development: Provided technical support for zkVM-related Proof of Concepts (PoC) projects, facilitating expanding Zero-Knowledge Proof applications on CKB.
• CKB-VM assembly code in RV64IM
• RocksDB Schema Optimization: By implementing a block-number prefixed key schema, write amplification was reduced from 15× down to 2×. This significantly enhances long-term node stability and storage throughput. (Links: Issue #5087, PR #5085)
• Explore additional optimization opportunities in ckb-store .[Need Reconsider] Warm up StoreCache entries from in‑memory BlockView to avoid redundant RocksDB scans #5090