Community Update 181

General

• Status of the networks and Releases
  • All Main net nodes are running Hard fork 1 version of RNode version 0.12.1 https://github.com/rchain/rchain/releases/tag/v0.12.1 This version includes the block merge code that does not require a hard fork, but block merge is currently disabled until we have the block merge version coming up in hard fork 2, aka block merge hard fork.
    
  • Test net is also running the same version as above. Current test net info is at RChain public testnet information
  • The current epoch ends at July end. Please email staking@rchain.coop If you want to stake additional REV or withdraw your current stake (ONLY the portion that is not subject to long term staking in your purchase contract). The default is to roll over your stake to the next period if you take no action.
  • There will be two more hard forks after this, one for block merge (release versioning will be 0.13.x) and one for PoS changes (release versioning will be either 0.14.x or 1.x.x) to eventually enable a fully decentralized node.
    

Sprint 91 in progress

Main Focus is to prepare the Hard fork 2 - Block merge hard fork for the test net. Other work items include resolving any identified bugs, improving  performance, hardening the main net, configuration changes in preparation for decentralized validators, Hard fork 3 changes - PoS contract and other.  Current PR list is at https://github.com/rchain/rchain/pulls .  

Hard Fork 1

1. Successfully completed Hard Fork 1 around the originally planned time frame of last Sunday AM U.S. Eastern time. Kudos to the team for all the hard work and due diligence.
2. The largest exchange by volume has completed testing and has enabled transactions. Others are completing their testing.

Hardware based performance improvements:

1. Denis has generated some performance data comparing C, C++, Rust and Scala implementations of Bytebuffer and Bytevector with different scenarios of memory allocation and reuse, to inform our choice of pathways for performance improvement moving forward. Denis is now beginning to work on the Scala tasks.

Hard Fork 2 - block merge hard fork

1. The design for supplementing per validator vault per deploy purses is complete. This was the main blocker for the block merge release. For each new deploy precharge within a block, a purse will be generated and used for all transfers and refunds related to that deploy. At closeBlock, all funds are rolled into the validator vault and zero balance purses may be garbage collected. This design of a vault may be useful in other situations for dApp developers. We will have a detailed presentation / demo on this once there is some progress on the code. The first implementation may not provide the most optimal performance. We will work on performance improvement subsequently.
2. Status of various Block merge tasks is at
   1. https://github.com/rchain/rchain/projects/4  and https://github.com/rchain-test/rchain-secure/projects/1
3. An initial release will be tagged in the next few days for testing in the dev net, with a work around for the per deploy purse. After the implementation of per deploy purse is complete, a block merge release will be made available to the community for testing.  

Hard Fork 3 - PoS changes

1. The design for Soft fork process was reviewed at the last Tech Governance meeting (Friday 9:30 AM Eastern).  Isaac is making progress on the proof of concept code for the same at https://github.com/rchain/rchain/pull/3485. 
2. PR for Rev Vault logging is being reviewed https://github.com/rchain/rchain/pull/3418

Release Plan

Currently planned near term releases are

1. Block merge release hard fork 2,
2. Configuration changes release,
3. Performance improvements releases (one or more),
4. Hard Fork 3 with PoS changes and other items,
5. External validators process validation with trusted community validators.

Explanation of the different Hard Forks (for reference)

Proceeding further with block merge requires changes to the per validator vault to make it a per deploy vault/purse etc. We are currently finalizing the design for this. Actual code and test will take some time. We are potentially looking at this scenario:
1. First hard fork for balances and removing the slashed validator
2. Second hard fork for block merge - This is the fastest way to get block merge on the main net without holding it until the third hard fork. This includes the per deploy vault and the Tree depth being increased to 4.
3. Third hard fork with all other changes.  Third hard fork includes implementation of a lot of changes including the PoS contract changes, Soft fork process etc.  Design for soft fork process is complete and is being reviewed by the team.

(Hard Fork) TEST NET 2 ADVISORY: (for reference)

To test the version of block merge with data changes that need a hard fork, we are creating a separate feature branch and a TEST NET 2 as the testbed for this feature branch. This content will be left here until we are close to Hard Fork 2 implementation on the main net. 

1. There will be no guarantees of data storage format compatibility on Test Net 2, as the data storage format changes are incrementally implemented. The anticipated changes are mostly storage level format changes visible only to node operators. We encourage the community to start using Test Net 2 in addition to the current test net, so that we can quickly identify and resolve any issues with the upcoming hard forks. All new development should be targeted to TEST NET 2 and all current code MUST BE tested against TEST NET 2 to ensure future compatibility. 

On all the hard forks on the main net, we will be starting from an empty state, with REV balances only. On Test Net 2, this 'loosing the state' will be repeated multiple times.

Tech-Governance meetings on Fridays 9:30 AM Eastern, 6:30 Am Pacific 

Mercury requirements and acceptance criteria

Details on the acceptance criteria: Mercury acceptance criteria

Please see the documentation at https://github.com/rchain/rchain/blob/dev/docs/features.md. 

Developer website

https://developer.rchain.coop