FOSDEM 2021: Pinecones and Dendrites - P2P Matrix Progress

Introducing Pinecone: a new P2P overlay network for Matrix Matrix () is an open protocol for secure, decentralised communication - defining an end-to-end-encrypted real-time communication layer for the open Web suitable for instant messaging, VoIP, microblogging, forums and more. We introduced P2P Matrix at FOSDEM 2020, and throughout 2020 we’ve been working on improving P2P Matrix. This includes massively improving Dendrite, our next-generation Matrix homeserver implementation, implementing P2P Element for genuine mesh networks on iOS via AWDL, using Yggdrasil as a P2P overlay network - and more recently implementing Pinecone; a next-generation P2P overlay network inspired by Yggdrasil which supports source routing and virtual ring routing as well as typical greedy routing. In this talk we’ll show off all the progress and give a VIP tour of Pinecone. Matrix has traditionally been a decentralised rather than distributed protocol - with conversations replicated over all