Development update October 2019
Almost ready for release
Despite the constraints on their time resulting from superblock budgetary limitations, both Artem and Ashot are making solid progress with their projects. It looks like they’ll be ready to advance to their next stages at about the same time. In this update we talk about the active projects, the forthcoming Emerald release and tease you with possibilities for the subsequent release.
NFT framework
Artem is still working to finish the mempool transactions and NFT protocol registration functionality. These have proved trickier than anticipated but he thinks they’ll be done and the Emerald release (v0.14) ready for testing by the end of next week. So we’re on track for mainnet release early in November.
We have some volunteers lined up to help with the testing but it would be helpful to have a few more. If you are also keen to help then a good preparatory task would be to get set up on testnet. Then, as soon as we push the release you’ll be able to upgrade and get stuck in. The more people we have testing the release the shorter the test window can be and the sooner we can push the mainnet release.
We’ll publish an article in the next couple of days explaining how to get involved if you’ve never experimented with testnet.
Codebase update
Ashot is putting the finishing touches to the QT wallet code. This has proved a bigger task than anticipated but it is the last section of the Bitcoin v0.17 codebase to be integrated. He is hopeful that by the end of next week he’ll be ready for the first attempt at firing up the merged code. He’s expecting it to not work perfectly first go and to hit some bugs. Probably after a couple of weeks it will be ready for more widespread testing.
Trezor — the proof is in the pudding
Due to an unfortunate oversight, Crown is not yet usable with the Trezor hardware wallets. We have submitted another merge request, which has already been accepted. We are hopeful that Trezor firmware versions 2.1.7 for Model T, and 1.8.4 for One, will finally work with Crown. It’s not possible to test in advance of the releases so we won’t know for certain until the firmwares are available in the wild.
So what will be in the Emerald release?
Crown v0.14 “Emerald” will include:
- NFT core functionality
- NFT registration
- NFT protocols registration
- Bitcore NFT support for web-development
These components will provide developers and web developers with enough functionality to really build applications using the NFT framework. We’re aware of a handful of projects in development and look forward to seeing them finished and operational soon after the Emerald release.
What about the codebase update?
Although in the opening paragraph it sounds like NFTs and codebase will be ready for testing at about the same time they are really at different stages in the development process. They will not appear together in the Emerald release. Even if they were at the same level of completion it would be (too) risky with the resources at our disposal to release them at the same time. So the codebase update will be in the next release.
It might be possible to include the next elements of the NFT framework in that release. Right now NFT framework and the codebase update are happening in parallel from basically the same starting point. So the Emerald code knows nothing about the codebase changes, and the new codebase knows nothing about the NFT framework. Those two branches will have to be merged and the result will hopefully be the base for the next release.
The other planned NFT framework functions are:
- NFT protocols data update (plus associated Bitcore changes)
- NFT burn (plus associated Bitcore changes)
- NFT transfer and transfer authorisation (plus associated Bitcore changes)
- NFT trading (expected to be an off-chain protocol using the Bitcore wallet service)
The timing and content of the next release will be dependent on how the market reacts to the Emerald one. Crown is producing really solid technological development but so far that is not reflected in the price. We need to see a good price bump from the Emerald release to be able to afford to continue the development effort.
Would you like to know more?
If you’d like to get involved in Emerald release testing, or have any questions or comments on this update, please let us know in Discord.
We have a weekly development call on Zoom every Thursday at 13:00 CET which any community member is welcome to join. Ping Artem in Discord if you’ve never attended before so he knows to let you in.
If you have a suggestion for a codename for the release after Emerald please let us know in Discord or Telegram. Continuing the (green) gemstone theme, one possibility is Verdite.
