Ren Development Update | September 2022
The primary focus this month has been the continued development and preparation of the launch of Ren 2.0, involving lots of testing, porting old features to work with the new MPC algorithm, and adding new surprise features! We have also finished our support for Moonbeam and undergone a Ren testnet migration from Kovan to the Goerli network.
Ren 2.0 updates
DKG
Distributed key generation (DKG) is a core component in allowing a set of nodes to generate a key pair, such that the public key is output publicly, while the private key is distributed amongst the nodes through secret sharing. The initial implementation of Ren’s DKG protocol is in its final stages of testing. The focus will now shift to integrating it into the new Darknode client, as well as increasing its robustness in such cases where nodes go offline for any reason, which is expected in a decentralized network.
All bridging transaction types integrated with new MPC algorithm
Minting and burning, as well as the recent host-to-host transaction type, have successfully been integrated with the new FROST algorithm in the new Darknode client! This will ensure that the ecosystem transition between Ren 1.0 and 2.0 will be as smooth as possible.
NFT support
Surprise! The team has quietly added support for NFTs to Ren 2.0. This will open up Ren to a whole new host of applications and developers who can use Ren. Support for minting and burning NFTs is currently undergoing testing, and will be detailed in future posts.
Chaos testing
Finally, Ren 2.0 has been undergoing continuous thorough testing in a local environment. Over the coming month we will be deploying Ren 2.0 to testnet and starting the work on the next set of features including key rotation and fee management.
Moonbeam deployment
Moonbeam, an Ethereum-compatible smart contract parachain on Polkadot, has been integrated into Ren! RenJS support is already live, so developers can already begin utilizing Ren’s support for Moonbeam both on testnet and mainnet. Verify the token contracts on this page, by selecting ‘Moonbeam’ in the dropdown menu in the Gateway contracts section: https://renproject.github.io/ren-client-docs/contracts/deployments
Integration into RenBridge is soon complete with a separate announcement when that is live.
Goerli transition
The current Ren testnet (including contracts such as the Darknode Registry) have been migrated from Kovan to Goerli, given that the Kovan network has been deprecated by the Ethereum community.
This means that integrators using the Ren testnet will need to make a few small changes so that your application is pointing to the new network and contracts. Instructions for doing so can be found on this link.
