[ANN] go-monblob v1.1.0: A standalone, zero-dependency Go library for parsing Monero transaction blobs

[cexpepe]

Hi Gophers,

I'm excited to announce the v1.1.0 release of go-monblob – a pure Go, zero-dependency library for parsing and serializing Monero transaction binary blobs (tx_blob).

Repository: https://github.com/cexpepe/go-monblob

Documentation: https://pkg.go.dev/github.com/cexpepe/go-monblob

The Problem It Solves

If you've ever worked with Monero in Go, you've likely encountered the same frustration: there is no standalone, well-maintained library that handles transaction blob parsing. Existing Go libraries like go-monero and go-xmr-lib are great for RPC communication, but blob parsing is typically a side feature—often incomplete, tied to specific RPC versions, or not maintained as an independent component.

The result? Developers end up reading Monero's C++ source code (cryptonote_basic.h) and re-implementing the binary format from scratch. This leads to fragmentation, subtle bugs, and duplicated effort across projects.

go-monblob aims to fill this gap by providing a clean, well-tested, and performant translation layer between []byte and structured transaction data.

What It Does

go-monblob follows CNS003 and Monero v0.18+ specifications, adopting a "precise prefix parsing + raw signature retention" strategy to support all transaction versions (V1/V2) and all RingCT types (0–5).

Core API:

tx, err := monblob.Parse(blob)           // []byte → Transaction

blob, err := monblob.Serialize(tx)       // Transaction → []byte

txid := tx.Hash()                        // Keccak-256(prefix)

prefix, _ := monblob.ParsePrefix(blob)   // prefix only (no signatures)

Key Features:

    Zero external dependencies – only uses the Go standard library (plus golang.org/x/crypto/sha3 for Keccak-256)

    Full parsing & serialization – supports Transaction and TransactionPrefix with complete round‑trip support

    Lossless round‑trips – signature blocks (including RingCT) are kept as raw bytes

    High performance – parses 100,000+ typical transactions (~2KB) per second on a single core

    Production‑ready security – built‑in recursion depth, slice size, and memory limits to prevent DoS attacks

    Fuzz testing – native Go fuzz tests continuously verify robustness

    Streaming support – ParseFromReader and SerializeToWriter for handling large data

Project Status

    Version: v1.1.0 (stable, tagged)

    Test Coverage: ~79% (Codecov)

    License: MIT

    Go Version: 1.24+

The library is already being used in production environments and has been tested against real mainnet transactions.

How You Can Help

I'm looking for:

Code reviews – feedback on API design and implementation

Adoption – if you're building anything in Go that touches Monero transactions, please consider using this library

Issues – open an issue if you find edge cases or missing features

The goal is to establish a common, reliable foundation for Monero transaction handling in Go—so we can all stop rewriting parsers.

Check it out: https://github.com/cexpepe/go-monblob

Thanks for reading, and I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Best,

cexpepe