The core developers have tagged a new 2021.05.28.0 Hotspot firmware release which prepares support
for Validators on Mainnet. This is a
required upgrade for all miners and will be automatic for all Hotspots using the Helium firmware
when we GA.
miner#795: Update blockchain-core dependency
A dependency bump to include resync fixes from blockchain-core.
miner#794: Update blockchain-core and new blessed snapshot
This change updates blockchain-core dependency and changes the blessed snapshot to 862561.
miner#793: Update blockchain-core for Validator and AS923 support
This change updates blockchain-core depedency to include Validator support and updates AS923 LoraWAN frequency channels.
miner#791: Relax timers on PoC related events
The team noticed that in certain scenarios when block production is slower than expected, the Proof-of-Coverage related timers were too restrictive. This has been fixed.
miner#772: Update CSV for LoraWAN Spec RP002-1.0.3
Thanks to community member @shawaj for adding this change which updates the countries CSV list to newer LoraWAN Spec RP002-1.0.3 and fixes channel parameters for multiple regions.
blockchain-core#832: Fix new ledger invocation
This change fixes some incorrect calls to invoke a new ledger when a new snapshot is loaded.
blockchain-core#831: Fix checkpoints for block handles
This fixes checkpoints (used for snapshots) to invoke a new ledger correctly.
blockchain-core#829: Fix poc_receipts eunit
The team noticed broken eunit tests in blockchain_txn_poc_receipts_v1, these have been fixed.
blockchain-core#727: Validator support
The team finally merged the highly anticipated support for Validators. Validators are a new entity on the Helium Blockchain that will perform the work of the consensus group including verifying transactions and adding new blocks to the blockchain. Validators improve the overall security, and reliability of the network allowing it to continue its unprecendented growth.
NOTE: We will have a separate post on the activation schedule.
Once the validator related chain vars are activated on the network, users will be able to stake validator nodes. After the threshold (100 validators on Mainnet) has been met we will choose a date to activate validator nodes to start performing consensus group work and earning HNT rewards on Mainnet. This activation date provides everyone an equal starting point to prepare and stake validators.
Please feel free to read HIP 25, and docs for more information on Validators.
This PR is also accompanied by a few smaller bug-fix PRs, notably:
- blockchain-core#820: Bug fix for election-v5
- blockchain-core#818: Add release height to Validator record
- blockchain-core#817: Guarantee offline Validator removal
Plan
We have been beta testing 2021.05.28.0 since May 28th, 2021 11:50 AM PT. Current ETA for GA is
5:00 PM PT, May 28th, 2021.