SDBS #25: Testnet Competition Results and StealthExplore API
In today’s post, I introduce the StealthExplore API (application programming interface), which is a significant extension to the core client. The StealthExplore API will serve at the heart of a development infrastructure essential to promote growth of the Stealth ecosystem.
Additionally, today we give the results of the Junaeth testnet competition, where StealthNode operators competed to produce blocks.
StealthExplore API
One new direction of coin development that I am excited about is an application programming interface (API) called the StealthExplore API. To be built fully into the reference client, the StealthExplore API is an optional RPC (remote procedure call) API that extends the existing RPC API considerably. The most important aspect of its functionality will be to enable callers to query information about any address on the Stealth blockchain. For example, callers will be able to retrieve full transactional history and unspent inputs.
The main advantage for the StealthExplore API will be that it provides a single informational tool for rapid end-user application development. Examples of such applications include light wallets, explorers, and point-of-sale (PoS) software. Most importantly, because the blockchain client and StealthExplore API will be part of the same tool and codebase, they can evolve together.
I have just begun work on the StealthExplore API, after discussions with the team about how we should address the requirements of several other infrastructure projects in development, all with overlapping API needs. Rather than each project’s having its own way to access blockchain information, we decided that the best approach would be to provide this information through an extended API built into the core client.
For third party projects, this monolithic approach will kill many birds with one stone. These projects only need to build and run the core client to get a synchronized blockchain, a full API for their development needs, and greater confidence that changes to the core protocol will be reflected in the API (or even rendered transperent by the API) without their additional effort.
On a practical note, the API must be enabled through the configuration file option “exploreapi=1”. Enabling the API will require a full re-indexing of the blockchain, either by bootstrap or network synchronization. I have already made some initial commits that implement some of the first commands, but these implementations will change. If testnetters have already pulled these commits, they will find that re-indexing is necessary. Soon I will reverse this necessity. Re-indexing will then only be necessary if a user explicitly enables the StealthExplore API in the configuration file. Testnetters are encouraged to wait until I stabilize the interface before pulling any new commits.
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Junaeth Testnet Competition Results
We are happy to present the results of the public testnet competition. This competition involved 15 participants who competed for three months to produce blocks on the Junaeth testnet. Participants competed for a prize pool of 150,000 XST, with the pool being split proportionally to the number of blocks each participant produced during the competition period.
The starting block for the competition was 17,400 and the ending block was 1,255,406 which had a timestamp of exactly December 10, 23:59:59 UTC, the designated end of the testnet competition. These results can be retrieved with the client using the “getqposinfo” command, using the optional block height parameter. Specifically, one can issue the command “getqposinfo 1255406”. This command is an early example of our nascent StealthExplore API described above.
The results of the competition are below. We would like to thank all participants for their patience and input. The level of participation enabled us to quickly optimize the Junaeth protocol to reliably produce five second blocks. We will contact participants soon to distribute participation rewards.
For the near future, all development will be on the Junaeth testnet, with some features spilling over to mainnet. This means that the testnet will continue, and individuals may participate voluntarily. New participants are also welcome.
The main reason why we have to develop on the Junaeth testnet specifically is that the mainnet needs to support fully private transactions before the StealthNode purchase period, so that the StealthNodes themselves can be private. This situation will allow potential StealthNode purchasers to anonymize their purchasing coins before the purchase.
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Hondo
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