Zcash for one of the cryptocurrency focused on anonymity of transactions — will soon go through its first fork. The update, named “Overwinter” will require widespread adoption by users inside the network zcash for for new. The developers claim that with this upgrade there will be no problems; however, the risk remains branch of the “dissatisfied” part of the community of the main chain, which will lead to the creation of a competing cryptocurrency.
The transition to Overwinter will happen on the block 347.500, which, according to preliminary estimates, will be generated in the morning this Tuesday. In fact, the new Protocol is a preparatory step before carrying out more large-scale renovation in October.
In turn, the update (Sapling) has been established to facilitate private transactions zcash for to make the blockchain more scalable and accessible to more users. It is assumed that Sapling should not cause much controversy — especially that Overwinter will introduce changes in the main code.
As stated on the official website zcash for dozens of companies, stock exchanges, mining pools, startups, openly supported the Overwinter. MinerGate, Bitfly and Huobi also expressed support in their accounts in Twitter.
Simon Liu (Simon Liu), software engineer zcash for, I am sure that no overlap should not be. In comments to CoinDesk, he said: “All involved parties unanimously support Overwinter”.
Agrees with him and the founder of Zuko Wilcox (Zooko Wilcox):
“We worked with a large number of people from the industry, and they all attend the launch. In fact, almost the entire company is working to ensure that the upgrade went smoothly and without compromising security, to strengthen the protection of users.”
At the same time, training to upgrade was not without drama.
Di Jane Mercer (Jane D. Mercer), the developer of the Windows version of the wallet zcash for, WinZEC, threatened to stop working on the client code and will conduct its own hardwork if the costs of the project will not resume. The situation was quickly resolved when the developer account began to receive anonymous donations.
At the same time, the discontent within the community caused by the arrival of ASIC-miners for zcash for continues to grow. But the developers claim that this will not affect the success of Overwinter, given that any change will bring an upgrade.
Important stuff
One of the reasons for such optimism are the precautions pre-established team zcash for.
For example, in itself Overwinter abundance of innovations, explained software engineer zcash for Jack Grigg (Grigg Jack). It is primarily designed to prepare the network for the October fork, Sapling, reinforcing the protective mechanisms for a full system upgrade.
In addition, said Grigg, every code is a kind of practical optimization of the blockchain. One of these changes is the expiration of a transaction — the mechanism which provides for the cancellation of the operation if it has not been processed within a certain period. In addition, Overwinter contains a new Protocol that fixes a bug hash for which some transactions took a larger volume within the network.
Commenting on this nuance, Grigg said, “the network is a good incentive to support updates to improve performance for more transparent transactions with many input points”, adding that this reduces the risk of third-party office from the circuit.
But the risk is still there.
As some new algorithms are primarily protective in nature, protecting the user from any damage that may be caused when hardforce — for example, from the attacks of the repeat — until they are not activated and problems can arise during the transition to Overwinter.
It Grigg replied that there is nothing surprising: Overwinter programmed to protect the network during a later update — but for himself ACCORDING to his own protocols not working.
Protective half-measures
However, there are a number of techniques that can help developers to further secure the blockchain during the upgrade.
So, an hour before activation Overwinter on all nodes within the network will launch a Protocol “safe mode” to prevent implementation of the transaction on the original circuit — in this case, individual nodes can disable the startup of the Protocol.
According to Grigg, safe mode will save the money of users who decide to use the older version of the client:
“Translating early versions of the customers in safe mode, we protect users from accidental damages caused by lack of knowledge about how to activate updates.”
The zcash for the original circuit provides a similar mechanism called “Autoselect” which deactivated the old version FOR 16 weeks after a new release.
Not so long ago the developers decided to remove the optional disabling of Autoselect, so says the developer zcash for Jason Davies (Jason Davies), users never lag behind upgrades:
“The mandatory use of Autoselect simplifies the relationship between the zcash for and community. By default, the client zcash for requires constant updating”.
But this risk mitigation strategy does not end there. Wilcox reported that Overwinter passed a series of third party tests (the audit was conducted in March), which showed complete absence of vulnerabilities in code.
Wilcox said:
“I want to show the world that we can make sophisticated, revolutionary innovations and to do so efficiently, with no harm or threat to the growing ecosystem.”
comments powered by HyperComments
