IRISHUB 2.0 Upgrade: EVM Support and More

IRISHUB will soon achieve its next major milestone: release 2.0. Join us for a deep dive!

IRISHUB, the first mainnet launched in Cosmos alongside Cosmos Hub, is now poised to achieve its next major milestone: release 2.0. This upgrade will bring about significant changes, and impact the whole ecosystem by introducing the long-awaited EVM features. This blog post is dedicated to exploring the new features and what they mean for IRISHUB builders and users, join us for a deep dive!

EVM Support

The most significant change in IRISHUB 2.0 is the support for Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), which will enable the integration of EVM-based smart contracts and dApps into the IRISHUB ecosystem.

Additionally, IRISHUB 2.0 will introduce a new fee token to be used in the EVM — not through new issuance but through conversion from IRIS. The conversion rate between IRIS and the new fee token is set at 1:1. Gas fees consumed by smart contracts in the EVM are dispensed according to EIP-1559, i.e., a significant portion of the gas fees will be burned. This means that IRIS could enter into deflation should there be a large consumption of EVM gas, which can be remedied by increasing the governance-controlled inflation parameter — 4% since genesis — one of the lowest in Cosmos.

Backed by the mature and well-established ecosystem, EVM will bring a wealth of resources for IRISHUB builders to create more diverse dApps and use cases.

Other Changes

1. Hard-fork upgrade

We will be carrying out a hard-fork upgrade to address some legacy issues related to the buggy cosmos-sdk v0.46.5 used in IRISHUB v1.4.1.

A hard-fork upgrade will bring the mainnet up to a much more stable version of cosmos-sdk in a low-risk manner, while “cleaning the slate” for bustling dApp activities that are expected to ensue.

With a hard-fork upgrade, the mainnet starts afresh with a much smaller state snapshot, which will help node operators to cope with the large and growing storage burden (~1TB right now).

You can read the draft proposal here for the detailed info.

2. Base library upgrade

As in the previous upgrades, some base libraries including cosmos-sdk and tendermint will also be updated to improve stability and compatibility:

• cosmos-SDK → v0.46.9
• tendermint → v0.34.26 (dependent on cosmos-sdk v0.46.9)

Considering that the Game of NFTs is still underway, we plan to load and enable the ICS-721 implementation in a subsequent upgrade.

What’s Next?

With the EVM support, IRISHUB 2.0 is expected to pave the way for stronger IBC-based NFT interoperability in the near future, and open up new possibilities for NFT-centered use cases and dApps.

We encourage everyone to stay tuned to our official channels to follow up on the upgrade. Let’s build a vibrant and thriving ecosystem together!