Newsletter - 27th Sept 2019 - Positive progress on Shelley testnet
The purpose of this newsletter is to provide you with progress updates about the Cardano project, in particular, development updates that relate specifically to exchanges and third-party wallets.
Positive progress on Shelley testnet – now entering Networked phase
At the end of August, IOHK employees from the Haskell, Rust, and formal methods teams met at IOHK’s new offices in Colorado. Over three full days of workshops, the team’s focused on finalizing the plan for the rollout of Shelley and specifically, the further iterations of the Shelley Testnet program that we kicked off in June.
Great progress has been made by the Rust team, who is leading this project - that allows us to release, test, and iterate the new features of the Shelley era. You can read more about the project over on our blog. To summarise, there are three phases of the Rust testnet deployment:
Phase 1: Release of the self-node software to the Cardano community. This has been completed successfully and – with the testing support of the Cardano community – we have a stable build to use in the next phase of the rollout program.
Phase 2: In the networked phase of the program, we’ll ask the community to start connecting nodes to each other, and build a unified, but decentralized, testnet of nodes running over the internet.
Phase 3: Once we have a stable networked testnet, the incentivized testnet will allow us to test the rewards and incentives models for delegation and running stake pools.
We kicked off the second phase this week, so stay tuned for the latest updates on our progress.
Cardano 1.6 (Byron) mainnet: Daedalus 0.14.0 with Cardano SL 3.0.3
IOHK last month released Cardano 1.6, which includes version 0.14.0 of the Daedalus wallet and Cardano settlement layer 3.0.3, on the Cardano Byron mainnet.
Daedalus 0.14.0
This release brings improvements in Daedalus such as new user interface themes, a redesigned loading screen, and more features. There are also improvements to the update proposal mechanism as well as a new wallet UTXO distribution screen to help users understand how their funds are distributed. For more information, please see the release notes.
Vital upgrade – Cardano SL 3.0.3
Cardano SL 3.0.3 is a small update that includes maintenance improvements for the settlement layer.
Although there are no major changes in this release, it is vital that all exchanges upgrade to Cardano SL 3.0.3 as soon as possible in preparation for the hard fork that is due in the coming weeks.
Once the majority of exchanges have upgraded to SL 3.0.3, we will implement the first of two hard forks. To avoid any downtime, we recommend that all exchanges upgrade to this version as soon as possible.
In the next few days or weeks, we will be sending out follow-up emails asking how your upgrade is going. We appreciate your feedback in this regard because it will help us plan dates and timelines for future hard forks and releases.
Transition to BIP44
As part of the transition from Byron to Shelley, we will be moving all addresses from the BIP39 specification to BIP44. This is an important transition for IOHK and something that will require some extra effort from exchanges.
Note that we will keep you up to date on the steps required for the BIP44 transition. Meanwhile, it would help us if you could complete this short questionnaire:
Cardano BIP44 wallet questionnaire
Apart from responding to this questionnaire, there is no action to take at this time regarding BIP44 wallets.
The intent of the questionnaire is to gain feedback that we can include in the new wallet with the second hard fork coming at the end of this year. Knowing these details will help us develop something to meet your requirements and infrastructure needs. We will keep you posted on updates as they become available.
Health check API
IOHK’s DevOps team has created a script that continuously monitors exchange API status reports. Its primary use is for IOHK to know if the ada currency is unavailable for trading on that exchange. If we receive an alert we can proactively reach out and provide support if needed.
We have implemented this on six exchanges so far with great success. Using the Prometheus tool, we receive alerts when an ada wallet goes offline. These alerts prompt us to contact the affected exchange and let them know. This has proven to be very useful with some of the bigger exchanges and all have welcomed this approach to monitoring the ada wallet.
If you would like to include the Cardano SL wallet running on your platform as part of this monitoring, please get in touch and let us know and we will provide you with the details.
Wyoming Plutus Hackathon
On September 20th 2019 IOHK hosted a Plutus smart contracts hackathon as part of the Wyoming Blockchain Stampede at the College of Engineering and Applied Science at the University of Wyoming in Laramie, Wyoming (103 East Lewis Street, Laramie, WY 82072 USA).
The aim of the event was for developers, entrepreneurs, and established companies to build up contacts and collaborations in the blockchain community, creating amazing innovations, and to learn more about the opportunities offered by Wyoming’s blockchain-friendly legislation.
This was the biggest Plutus hackathon yet, with more than 500 programmers testing out smart contracts. IOHK, Charles Hoskinson, Jeremy Wood, Michael Peyton Jones, Alexander Nemish, David Esser, and Jann Müller addressed the stampede. There were workshops on both Plutus and Marlowe, the financial smart contracts toolset for non-programmers. The Cardano Foundation sponsored the event.
The event was part of efforts by IOHK and the Cardano Foundation to foster the adoption of Cardano and smart contract development. Teaming up with blockchain industry influencers and the University of Wyoming should make this a notable event.
Event Link: https://wyohackathon.io