Seriously, ARK is giving dates? What is happening here? Yes, this is the moment most of you have been waiting for - the release date of the new ARK Core v2 codebase for public testing on DevNet (our public test network). This is not a MainNet release, only for our testing DevNet, but the code for v2 will finally be available for the world to see, test and contribute to.
Although most of you are familiar with our motto “ARK Gives No Dates”, this latest release needs coordination with those running DevNet delegates and relay nodes. Anyone running a DevNet node needs to be on board and prepared prior to release. Before we tell you the date, let’s review the steps that will occur during the upcoming months.
First, we will release the ARK Core v2 code on our public GitHub repository. This will be accompanied by a detailed blog post on the date specified for public release.
Repository will be available at : http://github.com/arkecosystem/ark-core (although it’s not yet available, you clicked it right?).
Current ARK Node codebase will as such become deprecated, not maintained and replaced with the new ARK Core v2 repository.
Next, our community and delegates who are running v1 DevNet nodes on the current codebase (ARK Node) will need to update their servers with ARK Core v2.
Don’t worry, we’ll release a detailed guide on how to install/replace your current ARK Node on DevNet. It will be much simpler to install the new Core and will now support different Operating Systems (including Windows). Be prepared for many new features to test!
With this, public testing of ARK Core v2 will begin! Test it thoroughly, try the most unimaginable of things, stress it, attacking the whole dev network, catch every issue you can, report bugs, provide improvements to the code, … and the end result will be a truly stable foundation for MainNet release. But who are we kidding, DevNet is where all the fun will be at so make sure you join in!
Note that the first iteration of the new ARK Core will be 100% backwards compatible (no new transaction types that are detailed in AIP-11). You will still be able to run your old ARK Node on DevNet, but we of course want you to switch to new code as soon as possible and help test it.
After DevNet testing is complete, we will provide another date announcing transition of the ARK Core v2 to MainNet. From ARK gives no dates to ARK gives two dates, we know… this is new for us too.
Predicting a date for MainNet at this time is highly unlikely as it all depends on how the testing on DevNet will go — on how many things that need to be modified, fixed and improved. Running on an internally controlled TestNet is a different beast from a live environment with real parameters and in a more distributed manner.
AIP-11 types (timelock, multipayments, IPFS, delegate resignation) will be part of a hardfork that will occur after we get our initial v2 release running on the MainNet. AIP-11 will require all delegates to update in order for the network to switch and support the new transaction types. This hardfork will NOT be backwards compatible (and again it will be tested beforehand on DevNet).
The timing of the AIP-11 hardfork also depends on when we get the initial ARK Core v2 update onto MainNet. We expect to start testing the hardfork as soon as possible on DevNet after v2 is running on MainNet.
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