Improved bootstrap from storage and syncing mechanisms in order to eliminate attacks when syncing from malicious nodes or when the database is corrupt.
Added security checks in order to prevent smart contracts to modify maliciously the balance or the state of an account into the protocol layer. Gas will be consumed, but the output will be disregarded.
Using the metachain peer processor, synchronizing the dynamic validator's data on the shard level. All of the nodes will now have the same view of all the validators' rating, their participation and their contribution to the consensus.
New transaction generation binary and improvements made to the node for receiving, validating and propagating transactions in the network.
Improvements for the termui console: added new metrics: an estimation of the time required for synchronization, number of transactions processed, etc.
Improved error handling on serial level DB: non-blocking. Fixed error that would put reading and writing from/to storage on an infinite loop.
Top-down analysis of the Elrond node and insights are being crystallized in the form of a comprehensive document.
