Verge Development Update #27

Two weeks ago, we skipped one iteration of the development updates after a whole year of consistency 🙌.

Let's see where we go from here!

Verge iOS v1.2.0 update

The latest update to the Verge Currency iOS wallet, v1.2.0! You can download it today from the App Store!

This release brings the following features and bugfixes:

Features

• Added Mars Mode (theme).
• Change application icon from the settings.
• Hide balances with tap on balance or device shake gesture.
• Sweeping of paper wallets, card wallets or any other private key based wallet.
• iOS 13 compatible.

Bugfixes

• Moved transactions (txid )extra information didn’t have any action behind it.

Changes

• Removed localization from the settings. The application will now rely on the device settings.
• Moved the Tor connection view upwards in a privacy section on the settings view.

Whats next?

The 1.2.0 update also made the wallet iOS 13 compatible. However, it was not built using the iOS 13 SDK. This means we miss out on some nice default iOS 13 UI changes. In the next big update, we’ll be focusing on supporting the full iOS 13 SDK and add the additional features that the SDK supports.

Verge Core Update (by Marpme)

We recovered all the v4 core requirements, from the old blockchain to the new blockchain. I will try to cover all the changes that were made in order to give you a good overview of our fellow miners experience.

At this point, I wanted to say thank you to all the people who were really helpful in finding, identifying and also resolving bugs with lightning speed. This couldn’t have been done without:

• “Tpfue0505”
• “tenz”
• “pinpin” from zergpool.com

In order to archive that we sat together and solved issue by issue that had to be addressed in order to build a fluent mining process.

But those changes were mostly contrary to what the bitcoin base has given us. Thus, we decided to note those places down and decide for follow up tasks that would be nice to be implemented, such as: (mostly hardfork topics)

• new difficulty calculation — caused by an older method that we are using in the V4 codebase which can be upgraded
• proof of chain work checks — simply cost a lot of effort to fix this issue thus it will be removed sooner or later, cause bitcoins solution is way more reliable.
• times for transactions and cohesive checks — old and unnecessary POS requirements

Besides those controversy topics there have also been some fixes within:

• the block template creation for mining operations
• other components that didn’t 100% respect the V4 way of life (compact-blocks, signatures checks, etc)

Features that also have been implemented:

• a brand new splash image created by Swen van Zanten
• import, export, and listing of stealth addresses via RPC and/or the console
• brand new seeds have been deployed and added to the list of seeds
• created initial DNSSeeds which reliably resolve to a lot of V4/V5 seeds for clearnet (no need for an “addnode” on clearnet nodes anymore)
• Mining templates have a brand-new indicator called “mining_disabled” if a block can’t be mined given the current algorithm in order to lower the orphaned blocks rate in advanced

Verge Android Wallet (by Manuel)

For this update I’m going to be like our upcoming wallet, lightweight (public sadly laughing in the background).

I’ve been implementing the VWS Service URL change feature in the wallet settings as you can see here:

Exactly like in the iOS wallet, in the Android wallet you’ll be able to use our public Verge Wallet Service (VWS) but you can also set up your own node (instructions here : video).

Besides, I’ve pretty much wrapped up the PIN feature. I’ve implemented it only in the paper key for now, but the structure has mostly been defined and I’m a couple lines away from adding it to upcoming features (like sending money). Of course, the PIN number can be reset anytime from the settings.

Otherwise, I’ve been working on minor UX fixes, such as renaming titles or once a setting has been changed (like the fiat currency) and getting back to the settings page instead of making that a manual action.

You’ll hear from us in two weeks!