Bifröst-2: Road to IRISnet Mainnet 1.0

Riding a Rainbow towards a new Dawn: the beginning of The Interchain Era!

Catdotfish

Published in

IRISnet Blog

7 min readJan 25, 2021

🌈 Dear IRISgardians,

It’s Almost Time to Upgrade!

What is happening is so incredible that sometimes I pinch myself to make sure it is not a dream.
After intense months of work, sleepless nights spent between one call and another, free time invested in testing every single component, countless people involved, and resources invested, we are there:

The Cosmos Hub Governance Proposal #37 announced the upgrade to Hub-4 and the first step of the integration of the Interchain Protocol on the Cosmos Network, which will happen on February 18th, 2021!

No longer a vision of a few, no longer a dream of many, no longer a hope of the community:
The future IS interchain and it runs through the Cosmos Ecosystem!

“That’s all well and good,” you may be thinking, “but where does IRISnet fit into this triumph of modern engineering?”

Well, let me summarize the indispensable contribution made by the IRISnet Core Team in the concretization of the Internet of Blockchain, without forgetting to present you a preview of the “pot of gold” that awaits us at the end of our personal rainbow, Bifröst.

Bifröst Testnet: The Story so Far.

Bifröst is the IRISnet-centric testnet, designed to verify the new features of IRIS Hub v1.0 as for example

Major refactoring of iService for much more powerful on-chain/off-chain interoperability;
New oracle module enabling off-chain data feeds (feat. ChainLink);
New NFT module supporting the digitization of assets;

and test out IBC communication in a multi-hub collaboration setting, working side-by-side with Cosmos Core Teams as Confio|CosmWasm, Tendermint, Regen Network, Chainapsis|Keplr, and many others.

IRISnet Research Director Jeffrey Hu introduced interchain service (iService) its effect combined with IBC & use-cases at Intechain Conversation 2

In addition, Bifröst is giving a unique opportunity to validators and service providers to be technically ready for the Upgrade to Mainnet 1.0 by participating in simulations and tests aimed at perfecting their approach to a new interchain reality.

There were 3 well-defined phases for Bifrost, two of which (Bifrost-0 and Bifrost-1) have been brilliantly completed, leading to the Bifrost-2.

✅ Bifröst-0

This phase was intended for:

Test wallets, exchanges, and block explorers against the legacy Amino REST interface;
Give Node Operators and Validators the opportunity to test their integrations against a work in progress version.

🔬Main Focus:
Verify the upgrade module of the actual mainnet to support the new features that will be available in IRIS Hub v1.0.

✅ Bifröst-1

This phase, comprehensive of multiple incentivized tasks, was intended for:

🔬 Main Focus:
Verify the upgrade module of the actual mainnet to support the new features that will be available in IRIS Hub v1.0.

🏆 Results Incentivized Tasks:
166 developers participated for a total of 1331 badges distributed and a completion rate of up to 92.4%!
Worth highlighting are the NFT-related tasks as, in this phase, more than 8,000 NFTs were mint.

🎖 Kudos to all the participants for having achieved such incredible performances, but especially to the StarryMedia team that, with their NFT-based e-ticketing dapp Uptick, minted almost 80% of all the NFT issued!
Read more about their IRIS Foundation Tech-Grant here and watch the presentation of Uptick at the InterNFT WG.

As you can well see, this is not an effort concerning only the IRISnet Core Team, Bianjie: in fact, it is a challenge that is involving the whole community.
And it’s that all-around involvement that is making it an incredible success.

Bifröst: Pilot Testnet for the Interchain Era

The decisive phase of the IRISnet Interchain Testnet, Bifröst-2, was launched on January 19, 2019, and it represents the vital step that will precede the long-awaited IRISnet Mainnet upgrade.
The software powering Bifröst-2 is irishub v1.0.0-rc0 (release candidate), which has integrated Cosmos SDK v0.40.0, Tendermint v0.34, and IRISnet’s unique functions.

This Incentivized Testnet has three major focuses:

⚙️ Functional Tests

Community, finally the magic comes to life!
The workhorses of IRISnet as AMM, NFT, iService, etc., developed with so much dedication by the Core team and that will determine its success as an adoption, will make their triumphal debut!
It will also be possible to practice on Stargate’s own properties such as IBC, State Sync, and much more.

💌 Recommended To:
Services Providers (Exchanges, Wallets, Explorers, dApps developers).

🆙 Mainnet Upgrade Simulation

Due to breaking changes introduced by the latest release of the Cosmos-SDK, the upgrade to IRIS Hub v1.0 will require a restart of the mainnet.
In preparation for this, the Core team will set up a testing ground for validators, where they will be able to practice their skills about restarting their nodes, migrating the chain state, and more, so that they will finally feel confident about the workflow they’ll face during the upgrade.

💌 Recommended To:
IRIS Hub Mainnet Validators.

⚛️ Multi-networks IBC Test Campaign

The final piece, IBC.
To further test the IBC token transfer function, improve the IBC user experience, support IBC-related tools development, etc, IRISnet joined Cosmos Network Core Teams as Confio, Tendermint, Regen Network, Chainapsis, and many others in a Multi-Chain Testing Campaign.
Thanks to this working group we will see the first true interchain microcosm rise: a sneak peek into the future that awaits us.

💰 Incentivized Tasks

As Bifröst-1 did, this phase welcomes contributors from the entire ecosystem and beyond!
The team is looking forward to seeing you challenge yourselves with the Bifröst-2 tasks and the Bug Bounty Program (III) that will be announced soon!
Developers aiming to win the interesting incentives offered should read [How to Join] and [Testnet Rules].

Tasklist and rewards:
- Network upgrade task list
- IBC task list

🔭 Real-Time Testnet Explorer

A New Interchain Era: IRIS Hub v1.0

The website has been revamped to celebrate this memorable moment: don’t miss all the news about Bifrost and the upcoming Upgrade.

Bifröst-2, as we well know, is just a taste of what’s in store for us with the Mainnet upgrade.

Important to empathize is that the IRISnet mainnet 1.0 will be a super-enhanced Hub: in fact, it will include not only the incredible features introduced by the Stargate Upgrade to the Cosmos Hub, but it will add more modules aimed to characterize what are the peculiarities of the IRIS Hub itself, bringing it to distinguish itself for specialization and target from any other present in the Cosmos Network.

I don’t want to anticipate too much, but I’m excited to give you a full list of the major implementations that will be inherent in IRIS Hub v1.0:

⭐️ Cosmos Network Features

Inter-Blockchain Communication (IBC)
Transition from Amino to Protobuf
State Sync
Automatic Upgrades
Full-featured Light Clients

💎 IRISnet Unique Features

Enhanced iService
Coinswap (AMM)
Oracle (partner Chainlink)
NFT (partner StarryMedia)
Random module
Record module
Major code refactoring

🔥To archive a Chain efficiency up to 100x🔥

🔓 Major Mainnet Use-cases Unlocked

Ticketing
StarryMedia team received IRISnet’s tech-grants to build Uptick, which will be available on IRISnet mainnet to provide interchain NFT application services for IRISnet users as well as other network users through cross-chain technology.
Token Swap
Looking for an Uniswap-like implementation on Cosmos Network?IRISnet Core team has made available Coinswap on IRIS Hub mainnet since its version v.0.16. They will improve its functionality and make it LIVE thanks to the upcoming Upgrade!
Connection to off-chain data feeds via Chainlink
The integration of Chainlink provides to the IRIS Hub users additional security, reliability, and interconnectivity. Chainlink technology enables on-chain apps and smart contracts to incorporate off-chain real-world data (as weather, financial asset prices, IoT data, location information, and much more) in a highly secure and reliable manner.
This will increase the possibilities and cases of use of the IRIS hub to infinity.

the founder of StarryMedia presents Uptick at the **Cosmos NFT Working Group**

This Upgrade will enable the Core team to achieve the goals set out in the KUAFU phase of the IRISnet Roadmap, allowing us to glimpse in the distance the arrival of HOUYI, the realization of the IRISnet’s vision, and the advent of the much-awaited mass-adoption by enterprises and developers.

Needless to say, given the importance of the upcoming upgrade, it is strongly recommended to Validators and Service Providers take part in Bifrost-2 asap.

Also, even after the IRISnet Mainnet 1.0 upgrade, Bifröst may continue to be live as the pilot testnet for other networks, which prepare to integrate IBC, to join and test.