After the first three planned hard forks of æternity network namely Minerva (March 2019) Fortuna, (June 2019) and Lima (October 2019) the core dev team has been continuously working on improving the network and after those three previously defined updates, this will be the first not previously planned update which changes consensus rules and therefore will be conditioned by a positive community vote.
The latest major protocol upgrade of the æternity protocol is scheduled for release on the 13th of April will need a positive governance vote — starting March 15th.
Clearly, big things are in store for æternity, with major contributions to the whole blockchain ecosystem, like Hyperchains , in the late stages of development. Before Hyperchains can become the consensus mechanism of the æternity network, core developers have been working around the clock to provide the first necessary update of the protocols called the Iris Hard Fork (Release 6.0).
With work on some parts of the update in its final phase, the original release date (25th February) was slightly postponed to include a wider set of improvements regarding state channels, interoperability of the evolved FATE 2 transaction engine, the ability to have contract cloning and factories as well as bytecode introspection.
Now, it is our pleasure to announce that the governance vote concerning the Iris Hard Fork will begin on Monday, the 15th of March . If the vote results are positive, the roll-out of the new release is scheduled for the 13th of April, and, in case the vote result is positive, the node operators and miners will have a time-window to update their nodes after that date.
Iris Hard Fork Features
From a user perspective, the new feature set includes the ability to use Zero Knowledge proofs and advanced multi-signature schemes on the æ blockchain, it includes a new type of Tx which allows an account to pay for a transaction on behalf of someone else , similar to gas stations, which will greatly improve adoption by reducing entry barriers to using æpss, and provides major improvements to æternity’s unique layer 1 features , embedded oracles, state channels and the æternity naming system.
Full release notes and in-depth technical details of the upgrade can be found here.
The community decides
As an open-source public blockchain that heavily relies on its community , the decision about supporting this proposed change of the consensus rules will be made by the community using the governance æpp which can be accessed through superhero.com.
The vote will be deployed next Monday, March 15th and will last until April 13th when, in case of a positive election outcome, the definitive release is expected to happen and node operators and miners can start upgrading their nodes. It is worth noting that in a proof of work network, miners support the community governance vote by upgrading their nodes and mining with the new consensus rules, as the election result sends signals to the miners which is the node version that the community supports, thus the most likely outcome is that miners follow on the community’s decision .
For the vote to be positive the following condition should be met:
51% of the votes (1 Æ = 1 vote) approve the network update
The vote and instructions on how to vote will be released by the scheduled date and we will be heavily promoting the vote in order to have the highest participation possible.
What do you want to see covered in the æternity blockchain?
After the vote, we will continue the work of keeping æternity being the most advanced blockchain in existence, thus we highly encourage the community to propose new features to be included in the next hard forks either by fully completing Aeternity Expansion proposals according to AEX1, if the community member has the knowledge to develop a full AEX proposal, or just by posting the concept of the feature in the forum to be assessed and further developed in the shape of an æternity expansion proposal. Æternity is yours and we want you to have a louder voice in the development of the æternity technology and æcosystem.
We are proud to have become stronger thanks to a vibrant and committed community that gets more say in the future of the network, fulfilling the vision of æternity contributing to a more decentralized, private and free world .
PS: The vote is now live on https://superhero.com/voting , poll #45 ! You can participate with your Superhero wallet or with your base æpp. Read more on the Iris Hard Fork Vote that started today here.
