Witnet Monthly Report — June 2020

A busy month, with scalability challenges as ~35k nodes join the Testnet network — Testnet 9.0 a/b/c launched. Numerous improvements to node UX and docker containers, new minerList CLI method, Active Reputation Set (ARS) merkleization, a keynote at CognitionX virtual conference, and more…

🤑 Witnet Testnet Incentive Program Phase 2

Please note: U.S persons, and those under the age of 18 are NOT permitted to participate in this phase of the program. Please see the Program Terms and Conditions for full details.

You can still sign up for Phase 2 of the Testnet Incentive Program! We are looking at a much broader participation, with no limit on the number of participants, and plenty of ways to get involved, regardless of your background or technical skills. Accordingly, the Witnet Foundation has allocated:

• Up to 25,000,000 WIT tokens (1% of the total WIT supply)
• Up to 30,000 $DAI

Full details on the program (and how to sign up) can be found on the page below.

Witnet Testnet Incentive Program - Sign Up for Phase 2!

🏗️ Development Update

Witnet Testnet Version Updates

On Thursday 18th June, the community attempted to launch Testnet 9.0a

However, the initial number of nodes was a lot higher than expected (we estimate around 4700 initial bootstrapping nodes), and so initial mining difficulty was set far too low. As a result, all nodes proposed blocks, and the network splintered into many forks.

Less than 24 hours later (on Friday 19th June), Testnet 9.0b was successfully launched

This saw the beginning of Block Counting for the Testnet Incentive Program — qualifying node operators that mined blocks during the initial Counting Period will be allocated Mainnet WIT!

Block counting lasted for 1945 epochs (just over 24 hours), with up to 35k nodes joining the network and 1848 nodes mining at least one block.

At around #1945, the network forked due to scalability challenges, and block counting was paused while these challenges are addressed in preparation for the upcoming Testnet 9.1.

For a full post-mortem, read the article below:

Witnet Testnet fork, as ~35k nodes join in.

Node

• If a node operator commits a RADON error (considered a forced error) whilst solving a request, it will not be slashed or lose collateral, or earn reputation or WIT. This ensures nodes are not inappropriately punished for circumstances outside of their control
• Docker improvements: now easier to modify config file and manage the master key (import and exporting into your node/s ). Docker nodes now also automatically restart after crashing
• A random user-agent is now utilized for data source retrievals — this will ensure that a web server cannot differentiate between queries from a Witnet node and from any of their regular users
• minerList CLI method added, which can be used to retrieve a list of addresses with blocks that they have mined — this is crucial for a scoreboard and network dashboard!
• Lots of technical discussion around collateral age (what can be used as collateral, and when) — one proposal sees only mined UTXOs used for collateral; WITs moved to another identity will not be useable. These will be tested in upcoming Testnet iterations
• New node state statuses and banners during syncing, to improve UX— now almost synced (instead of live) and synced

Sheikah — Desktop Wallet App

• The Data Request Editor now shows partial results of each operator, auto-tests the data requests and reports errors from the wallet or node when running Try Data Request
• Sheikah bundling has been improved— Sheikah can now run in the background, and a new minimum window size has been set.
• You can now change the default unit for showing values (wit, milliwit, microwit, nanowit)
• Sheikah now checks if wallet sessions are still live, and handles wallet session expiration

For the most recent demo of Sheikah’s updated Data Request Editor, head to Community Sprint Review #40 here

Ethereum Bridge and Smart Contracts

• Draft of proposeBlock() function issued for the Active Reputation Set (ARS) Block Relay — this function will take the superBlock arguments, aggregated signatures and PublicKey inputs and:

1. Verify public keys are members of the ARS usingverifyArsMembership()

2. Verify the signatures on BLS using verifyBlsSignatures()

3. Count votes on the superBlock (in case more than one superBlock is proposed)

Witnet Improvement Proposals

• Active Reputation Set (ARS) merkleization — through a merkle path provided by the bridge, we can ensure that BLS signatures come from confirmed ARS members in Ethereum. This has now been implemented within the node
• Weighing blocks and transaction block weight — at the moment, there is no limit on block size. This WIP aims to guarantee sustainable blockchain growth, and proactively model system workload and throughput

We encourage the whole community to check out the full list of current WIPs on the WIPs Repository on Github, and have an input into decisions and discussions on the #dev-general channel in Discord.

🎉 Events & Content

For those interested in becoming a Witnet Node Operator, we have released a new article covering some of the crucial details (especially for those running a node during the Testnet).

6 Important Details Every Witnet Testnet Node Operator Should Know

Community member Harsh Jain submitted a helpful article to the Witnet Community Medium Publication, with details on how to interact with a Witnet instance via an RPC.

Interacting with a Witnet Node via a Remote Procedure Call (RPC)

On the 9th June, Adan (Tech Lead and Co-Founder of Witnet) gave a keynote presentation at CognitionX’s virtual conference; “Decentralised Oracles: The Holy Grail of Web 3.0 Networks”. The presentation (starting at approximately 2:20:20) can be viewed on the link below.

With the COVID-19 crisis unfolding, our community members are suspending attendance to all physical events, and the majority of our community is working remotely.

📺 Keep up-to-date on our YouTube

With crucial Witnet updates being deployed constantly, you can now keep up-to-date with all Witnet-related developments on our fortnightly Community Sprint Reviews; subscribe to the Witnet YouTube Channel now.

The latest Community Sprint Review is viewable below.

For more Witnet-related content:

• Join the Witnet Testnet Incentive Program 🤑
• Read the Witnet whitepaper 📃
• Check out Witnet’s code on Github 🤖
• Read Witnet core documents❓
• Subscribe to our blog 📬
• Join the community Telegram group and Discord 💬
• Follow @witnet_io on Twitter 🐦