IRISnet Launched! IRISnet 2019 February Update

5 min readMar 21, 2019

This is the second update of IRISnet in 2019. IRISnet is designed to be the foundation for next generation distributed business applications. It is a BPoS blockchain, built with Cosmos-SDK, that enables cross-chain interoperability through a unified service model. You can find more details about IRISnet here.

Milestones

As the first BPoS blockchain in the world, IRIS Betanet successfully launched on 1st March 2019 5:30 GMT! This opens up a new chapter in the on-chain service network and marked a significant milestone for the development of blockchain as well as the whole decentralized network!

As the betanet has not been open to the public, there are less than 100 addresses being created on the chain. However, 58 valdiators have joined the launch and produced the genesis block. Built on a set of strict, pragmatic style and online governance, the betanet is on the path towards self-evolution. This represents the next generation of distributed applications. With the betanet, anything is possible!

TL;DR

Since February 11, the validators have begun to submit gentx actively to join the Genesis of IRIS Betanet.
One of our validators Cryptium Labs submitted a KMS solution with Ledger Nano S for IRISnet validators which gives you double-sign protection in hardware for the mainnet protocol of the IRIShub.
IRISnet was invited by both Suanli Intelligence and TokenGazer for an interview to share the observation of impressive blockchain project.
HashQuark and SlowMist jointly published an article about “The insights on secure deployment of Cosmos & IRISnet Validator”.
Besides validators, more and more developers and staking service providers have come to join us and witnessed the growth of the IRISnet community.

Technical Updates

IRIS Betanet

On February 11, irishub v0.23.0 released and was successfully used on the new FUXI Testnet.
On February 24, IRISnet announced that 5% of IRIS are reserved on IRISnet Genesis block for ATOM holders as gratitude to the innovation brought by Cosmos to our industry.
The technical community was actively involved in preparing for mainnet launch. The collection of gentx documents was postponed to 10am of February 28.
On February 26, the development team swiftly integrated the code that contributed by Cryptium Labs’s Adrian, who submitted a KMS solution with Ledger Nano S for IRISnet validators which gives you double-sign protection in hardware for the mainnet protocol of the IRIShub.
On February 27, irishub v0.12.3 released.
Genesis was released at 12:00 UTC on February 28 and the community was invited to conduct the final inspection.
In order to ensure the joining time of all the validators across the world, Betanet launching time was set at 5:30 UTC on March 1.

Fuxi Testnet

After several iterations of the testnet, Fuxi 8000 went offline and a new FUXI testnet launched.
FUXI Testnet will run the same software as IRIS mainnet, providing a stable test environment for the developer community (wallets, browsers, iService providers/consumers).
FUXI testnet was upgraded to version v0.12.2, v0.12.3 by restart upgrade, the following new features have been added:

— Supporting Ledger Nano S and KMS；

— Optimizing the default parameters such as gas_price_threshold;

— Double-sign will be punished with slashing the tokens; most of others will only be jailed.

IRIShub & Cosmos-SDK

Refactored the monitoring module and improved the monitoring parameters to optimize the system log.
Fixed the problems in tx queury; improved paging query function, and optimize the performance of querying large amounts of data in Tendermint.
Fixed the problem that the Lite Client validation fails when the validator collection changes drastically in Tendermint.
Fixed an issue with error in the repetitive check of evidence in Tendermint.
Supported the hardware wallet, Ledger Nano S for the regular clients.
Supported private key management tool KMS for the validators.
Tracked and recoded all internal flows such as revenue distribution.
Cancelled the slash penalty for “Censorship and Downtime” behavior.
Unified the default on max_commission_rate and the max_commission_change_rate.
Set the default value of gas_limit to 50000.
Released irishub v0.12.0, v0.12.1, v0.12.2, and v0.12.3 versions.

Rainbow Wallet

Added event banner for notifying the new activity to the clients.
Updated the transaction signature algorithm so that the compatibility of cold wallet is greatly improved.
Optimized the layout pages and asset structure looks clearer.
Tested for launch on Google Play, and prepared for releasing the official version for the IRIS Betanet.

IRISplorer

Optimized the view of proposal information. Displayed the key data for all types of Proposal in more detail and accuracy.
Deployed the beta version for final test before IRIS Betanet launch.

Community Development

Future validators is looking forward to the launch of IRIS Betanet and began contributing articles to support themselves.

Looking forward to the launch of mainnet

In order to maintain fairness for the global community especially for the European validators, betanet launched was set on 5:30 GMT, March 1. Those who were excitedly gearing up for such a moment expressed their thoughts on Twitter:

Validator EON:

EON shared the best practices and their thinking about delegation. It illustrates the benefit and risk of delegation to the token holders, and advises the delegators on how to avoid the risk. For more information, click here.

Cryptium Labs:

Cryptium Labs, an experienced IRISnet validator, shared the experience of delegating the token via Rainbow App. For more details, click here.

FUXI Testnet Validator Forbole:

Forbole has an outstanding perform on the test iterations of FUXI testnet. They actively promoted IRISnet and published an article on joining IRISnet Genesis as validator. On top of that, the Big Dipper browser, which was developed by Forbole, was also the first IRISnet browser developed by the community.

Note: The IRIS Foundation will not recommend any validators to the delegators. Token delegation is risky. Delegators should be serious and careful. Please do not delegate any token before you fully understand the rights, obligations and risk of delegation.

Along with the launch of the betanet, the IRIS foundation will conduct a series of reward through the Rainbow App. Download the Rainbow App and registered on the betanet will be rewarded as soon as we officially announced the start of promotion activities. Stay tuned and don’t miss any opportunities!