8.12.2020
10 Weeks in to Argon
It was another big week around the ecosystem with the Clarity Hackathon in full swing, Muneeb on the Edcon panel with Vitalik Buterin, and the first Stacks Ecosystem call hosted by the Stacks Foundation.
Proof-of-Transfer is currently the primary focus for implementation on the Stacks 2.0 Testnet. Feature updates and bug fixes are pouring in thanks to contributions from the community.
Check out the highest priority updates from the past week:
- In addition to general documentation design overhaul, a Stacks 2.0 testnet status checker has been added above the navigation bar on various related documentation pages to assist with monitoring downtime. → Github
- A status checker is also in the works for the testnet explorer. → Github
- A PR was merged that allows more parameters to be configured via configuration file, and better default download_interval for mining on testnet. This should alleviate issues some users were encountering with bitcoin-test failure, and greatly increase ease of spinning up a miner and downloading blocks. → Github
- An update was merged to stacks-blockchain that exposes tx-sender and contract-caller to bare code in smart contracts. Fixes an issue where they were not available during contract initialization. → Github
- Multi-sig transaction support is in the works for stacks-transactions-js after hash modes are implemented and authentication clearing is verified. → Github
- Support for unsigned transactions is also in the works. This should add compatibility for certain hardware wallets such as Ledger that sign transactions while keeping the private key on the device. → Github
- A pull request is in review to bring native string-ascii and string-utf8 types to Clarity. →Github
- Call for community feedback: The implementation of Proof-of-Transfer is on its way. We want to hear from developers what elements should exposed through the API, and what features should be added to the explorer. → Github
Resources:
- A public tracker has been set up so you can easily follow stacks-blockchain progress on the upcoming phase (Krypton) of the testnet.
- Don’t forget about the new Stacks 2.0 Testnet Status page for a quick glance at the health and history of the network.
- A full description of the current Argon phase from the Blockstack forum.
- The first round of bug bounty payments will be announced soon and bounties are still available - take a look!
One last reminder: In the stacks-blockchain repo, we’re starting to use the pattern of merging any significant upgrades in the next branch instead of the master branch. The intention is that the next branch will be deployed on the next testnet reset, whereas whatever is in master is safe to run against what’s currently live on the testnet.
There was a wide-spread outage of PBC infrastructure on Friday that led to many services, including testnet, being unavailable. This was followed by additional instability over the weekend, culminating in another reset on Sunday.
If you have any questions on the updates included in this email, or on PoX, STX Mining, or the Stacks 2.0 testnet, please reach out to Xan at [email protected].
Best,
The Blockstack PBC Team