Cosmos Hub’s v14.1 Upgrade is Coming!

The v14.1 upgrade for the Cosmos Hub is coming and is planned for Mainnet launch at block height 18262000, which should occur on Dec 13th, 2023.

The v14 upgrade brings the cryptographic verification of equivocation. This automated feature promises to safeguard against double signing and light client attacks more effectively, rendering previous manual equivocation proposals obsolete.

The on-chain proposal can be found here.

❗Note: All validators and node operators MUST use Gaia v14.1.0. Gaia version v14.0.0 is deprecated.

❗Note: Relayer operators will need to run an updated Hermes v1.7.3 that supports evidence mode.

What’s in the v14 Upgrade?

The v14.1 release contains three important updates:

• Upgrading the ICS library to v2.4.0-lsm
• Set in the v14 upgrade handler the min evidence height for neutron-1 at 4552189 and for stride-1 at 6375035.
• Introducing the cryptographic verification of equivocation feature to the ICS provider module

If you are a user of the Cosmos Hub, please be aware that during network upgrades there is a short downtime period, meaning that transactions and transfers might be delayed. Please monitor on Twitter for more information and check your favorite block explorer to check that blocks are being produced and the network is back to normal.

If you are a validator or a node operator for the Cosmos Hub, please see upgrade instructions at the bottom of this post.

Validators & Node Operators

Cosmos Hub validators and node operators can get up to speed with the upgrade process here.

❗ It is critically important for validator operators to back-up the .gaia/data/priv_validator_state.json file after stopping the gaiad process. This file is updated every block as your validator participates in consensus rounds. It is a critical file needed to prevent double-signing, in case the upgrade fails and the previous chain needs to be restarted.

❗ Golang v1.20.x we mandate that you must use Golang v1.20.x, if building the binary from source. This brings Gaia up to date with the latest version Golang, closing a number of issues that are in Golang v1.18.

❗Upgrade Support: During the upgrade window, we ask validators to please monitor and get support via the #cosmos-hub-verified-validators channel on the Cosmos Discord server.

Relayer Operators

The Gaia v14.1.0 upgrade brings forth the cryptographic verification of equivocation feature from ICS v2.4.0-lsm. This important security enhancement empowers external agents to promptly submit evidence evidence of light client and double signing attacks observed on a consumer chain. Operators can seize the control of this feature using either the dedicated ICS CLI commands or unleash the power of the Hermes IBC relayer in “evidence” mode.

This feature is supported by an updated Hermes v1.7.3.

1. ICS CLI

The ICS provider module offers two commands for submitting evidence of misbehavior originating from a consumer chain. Here are two examples illustrating the process:

To submit evidence of a double-vote:

gaiad tx provider submit-consumer-double-voting [path/to/evidence.json] [path/to/infraction_header.json] --from node0 --home ../node0 --chain-id $CID

And for a light client attack:

gaiad tx provider submit-consumer-misbehaviour [path/to/misbehaviour.json] --from node0 --home ../node0 --chain-id $CID

2. Hermes “evidence” mode

Ensure you have a well-configured Hermes v1.7.3+ relayer effectively relaying packets between a consumer and a provider chain. The following command demonstrates how to run a Hermes instance in “evidence” mode to detect misbehaviors on a consumer chain.

hermes evidence --chain <CONSUMER-CHAIN-ID>

Tip: this command takes a --check-past-blocks option giving the possibility to look for older evidences (default is 100).

What’s Next for the Hub?

December and January will be quiet months for the Hub developer teams, we wish all Cosmos users, validators and node operators a restful and festive period during this time.

Beginning of the first quarter next year, an upgrade proposal will be made for Gaia v15 that will see the migration of Gaia from Cosmos SDK v0.45 to Cosmos SDK v0.47. This will be a major release and as a result, the Hub team will have a longer testnet period for the v15 release candidate, so that Gaia users have enough time to give feedback.

In parallel, the Hub team are also busy working on updating Interchain Security to Cosmos SDK v0.50.

Upgrade Instructions

Please find the full upgrade instructions here:

Cosmos Hub 4, Gaia v14 Upgrade | Cosmos Hub