Hardfork Announcement for Witnesses, Exchanges and Users

in #hardfork6 years ago (edited)

HF ANN.jpg

The Steemit blockchain team has officially published our release for Hardfork 20, codenamed “Velocity.” This release includes code that specifies that the Hardfork will occur on September 25th. It is a testament to the engagement of Steem stakeholders and, for many witnesses, this is the first hardfork they have participated in! In this post we’d like to cover some hardfork basics, as well as what will be needed of the witnesses and exchanges.

What Is It?

In our post announcing the release of our testnet we explained hardforks on a conceptual level, but in this post we want to discuss what hardforks mean for witnesses and users.

A hardfork is a coordinated update of the consensus rules that govern a blockchain. Steem's hardforks are controlled by the witnesses voting for a hardfork version and time. This vote happens automatically when a block is produced on a steemd version that does not match the witness' previous vote. When a version and date are approved by a super-majority of witnesses, the next block generated after the voted-on-time will activate the hardfork.

Witnesses

Witnesses should review the changes in the hardfork release. If they agree with the changes, they should run the new version of Steem at their earliest convenience. By running the new version of Steem, they are casting their vote for the changes. By choosing not to run the new version of Steem they are casting their vote not to hardfork.

Steemians

Steemians should also review the changes in the hardfork release and vote for witnesses that agree on whether they accept or reject the hardfork. To see what version of steemd a witness is running, go to https://steemd.com/witnesses and vote for them at https://steemit.com/~witnesses. The hardfork vote of the top 20 witnesses determines whether the hardfork‒and the improvements included within it‒becomes active or not. Once a hardfork becomes active it cannot be undone except via another hardfork. This process is an incredibly important part of participating on the Steem Blockchain. In many ways, this process is how we ratify amendments to the Steem “Constitution.”

Exchanges

Hardfork 20 is scheduled to go live on: Tuesday, September 25, 2018 15:00:00 UTC. In order to ensure that Steem deposits and withdrawals are maintained without any outage or interruption in service, it will be necessary to run a re-index on a separate instance/server/copy of steemd prior to the Hardfork date and then 'flip the switch' over to the new release just before the previously mentioned date/time of the Hardfork.

For technical support, we are happy to assist with the transition and answer any questions that may arise. You can contact us at [email protected] or on discord.

Steemit Blockchain Team

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Hardfork 20 is scheduled to go live on: Tuesday, September 25, at 11:00am EST.

You guys know that we're in EDT now, right? Maybe listing these in UTC would be better.

They wrote it on Github in UTC & EDT:

https://github.com/steemit/steem/releases/tag/v0.20.0

Excellent point, change made.

Thanks for the info guys! Everyone is looking forward to HF20. Lets help get @yabapmatt to the top 20!

You've made the Steemit Minute for today! Congrats!

Check out the Video Here: https://steemit.com/news/@reseller/tv18fvjg

Thank you, once again, for so clearly explaining a thing that has puzzled me somewhat. Little by little, you’re helping me gain a valuable understanding of how this all works.

This’ll be the first hardfork I’ve experienced — I’m excited to see how it changes things. Here’s hoping its implementation goes smoothly!

I think we need this to go through so we can move on to the next level. It may not solve all the issues we see, but it's progress. I'm sure it will be a hot topic at Steemfest and we should have some idea of the effects by then

Already running v0.20.0 on my primary server. Very excited for Tuesday!

Replaying now as we speak on my back up, and then my primary is on next :D

I'm not a fan of sending rewards back to the pool but hopefully it goes better than I think it will otherwise maybe I can buy some cheap Steem. lol

Congratulations! Everything seems to be progressing according to schedule. It's really interesting to try to understand how complex the construction of Steemit is. There are many things to know and understand. Thank you for guiding us! These weeks have been difficult for everyone! Steem needs to move forward and I hope this will help him grow. We are still working!

The Hardfork looks interesting. I hope there aren't any unintended bad consequences. It looks to be mostly about account creation, SBD control, and curation rewards.

Thanks for all the hard work getting this going.