copying authors reply from github:

Dear Dominic,
I am so happy to see your message. I really appreciate the ideas you implemented in Scuttlebutt!
Sorry for the abstract I was writing the report for many hours straight with the help of my supervisor. I'm convinced the Handshake does need all four messages to achieve all security goals. I will fix it asap! And the typo as well :)
May I use this opportunity to ask you a question? I like a lot the construction of Scuttlebutt, especially how you deal with group chats encrypting the number of recipients and the main key! I was looking at the protocol from the cryptographic side but I saw the interview with you on epicenter where you also discussed the decentralization aspect of it. I was wondering why do you use Pubs that should be run on servers if it is possible to make it even more decentralized using BitTorrent protocol and maybe even a distributed hash table to get rid of the trackers. You were mentioning BitTorrent in the interview so there's probably a reason for such design decision, I am so curious to know what it is!
I hope my work helped at least a tiny bit the community! I have a desire to help the project develop. Would you be interested if I continue working with CryptoVerif to obtain more proofs? Or is it not the main focus and maybe I can help in some other way?

so I was reading too much between the lines and incorporating to much wishful thinking from what I knew about @kekss work. Since she addressed you directly, @dominic i didn't feel like responding myself. My butt thoughts are: Have you seen keks work on shs2? Probably not but i feel like they should talk... maybe also tell them about your plans for groups? :)