GRIDNET Core 1.4.0. Release Notes
Download URL: https://gridnet.org/GRIDNETCore.zip
Overview:
We are pleased to announce the release of GRIDNET Core version 1.4.0. This update brings substantial improvements to performance, stability, and user experience. Here’s a detailed breakdown of the changes incorporated in this release.
Protocol and Consensus Changes
In our quest to refine and redefine the blockchain landscape, we’ve taken significant strides to bolster the foundational bedrock of GRIDNET Core—its consensus mechanism. The revisions made in this release are both deep-seated and transformative, echoing our relentless drive to build a truly decentralized, stable, and future-proof system.
A Delicate Balancing Act:
The changes made at the consensus layer affect crucial parameters such as Miners’ Rewards, taxations, and the mechanics of vesting rules. The challenge is two-fold. Firstly, the essence of a decentralized system dictates that past records, embedded in blocks, must remain immutable. Secondly, while we cannot rewrite history, we aspire to embed new rules that will guide future transactions and consensus decisions. Bridging this gap requires finesse, ensuring that both past and future data lead to a unanimous, coherent viewpoint when analyzed from the origin, the Genesis Block.
For context, many pioneering blockchain projects, like Bitcoin, did not venture into these complex waters. The sheer simplicity of Bitcoin’s design required monumental maintenance efforts, involving academia’s brightest from around the world. Ethereum took a leap into this complexity, paralleling some challenges we face daily. Yet, the scope and vision of GRIDNET far surpass even Ethereum’s ambitious undertakings.
Navigating Temporary Turbulence:
During the past couple of weeks, some users may have encountered connectivity challenges. This stemmed from our rigorous and sometimes immediate interventions to debug and rectify issues encountered in the ‘official’ entry point nodes, especially those linked with the centralized Domain Name System (DNS) via ‘https://test.gridnet.org’. Our vision of transitioning to Decentralized State Domains promises a future where such centralized hiccups are a thing of the past.
Stability and Beyond:
Our unwavering focus and tireless efforts have crystallized into what we believe is a formidable and steadfast version of GRIDNET Core. Introducing GRIDNET Core 1.4.0—a culmination of rigorous testing, debugging, and optimization.
The subsequent sections will delve into the specifics of the changes we’ve introduced. Stay tuned for an in-depth overview of our reimagined Proof-of-Work adjustment algorithm. We’re also excited to share an Excel-based simulator, providing insights and projections based on the latest modifications.
Your continued trust and feedback are pivotal in this journey. We invite you to experience GRIDNET Core 1.4.0 and look forward to your invaluable feedback.
Enhancements:
1. Optimized Graphics Hardware Integration:
Expanding GPU Compatibility:
Understanding the significance of GPU hardware in the successful operation of GRIDNET Core, we’ve directed our efforts towards widening our support spectrum. In particular, our attention has been on the NVIDIA GeForce 10x, 30x, and 40x families of GPUs. Following feedback from our community about challenges faced on these platforms, our team delved deep into the specifics, fine-tuning our software to better serve the requirements of these graphics families. We didn’t just stop at enhancements; these GPUs now form an integral part of the ‘official’ GRIDNET infrastructure, ensuring a robust and smooth experience for Operators using these platforms.
Progressive OpenCL Kernel Compilation Feedback:
Kernel compilation, especially with OpenCL, can be a lengthy process. To enhance user experience and clarity, we’ve enriched the reporting mechanism during this phase. Instead of Operators being left in the dark about the progress and what’s happening behind the scenes, GRIDNET Core now maintains a meticulous record of the compilation journey. For compilations that stretch up to 15 hours, our system will not just passively track, but also actively communicate the progress to the Operators.
This new feature aims at Autonomous Psychological Reassurance, ensuring users are informed and reassured at every step. Messages have been curated to be instructive and comforting, mitigating concerns about potential freezes or lags. The aim is to foster a sense of trust and transparency, ensuring our community is always in the loop about the intricate processes that make GRIDNET Core the powerhouse it is.
2. Seamless Automatic Configuration:
Effortless Firewall Integration:
One of the common barriers many Operators encounter is the hassle of setting up and configuring the firewall to work seamlessly with their application. Recognizing this challenge, we’ve made significant strides in simplifying the process. With the introduction of our automatic configuration support, GRIDNET Core now efficiently interacts with your device’s underlying firewall settings.
Versatility Across Platforms:
Whether you’re using Windows or Linux, our latest upgrade has got you covered. For Windows users, our software seamlessly integrates with the Windows Advanced Firewall, ensuring that all necessary permissions and configurations are automatically set up. Meanwhile, Linux enthusiasts will appreciate our smooth integration with the NetFilter module, achieved via the ifconfig utility. This cross-platform approach ensures that no matter your operating system preference, GRIDNET Core provides a consistent, hassle-free experience.
Hassle-Free Setup, With A Note:
While we’ve automated most of the process, there’s one essential thing Operators need to remember: IF you want these autonomous actions to be carried out consider running GRIDNET Core with Administrative privileges. This step is vital to ensure the software can make necessary adjustments to firewall settings without any hiccups. Once you’ve granted these permissions, GRIDNET Core takes care of the rest, allowing you to dive straight into the action without wrestling with firewall configurations. By alleviating these technical hurdles, we hope to provide a more streamlined, user-friendly experience for all our Operators.
3. User Interface Enhancements:
Real-Time Difficulty Dial:
Understanding the difficulty level is crucial for any operator aiming to mine successfully. With GRIDNET Core’s recent update, users can now gauge the current required difficulty through a sleek, real-time dial. This live feedback empowers users, providing them with the precise data they need to make informed decisions and adjust their mining strategies as required.
Enhanced Block Intervals Visualization:
Efficient mining requires comprehensive insights. To aid this, we’ve introduced new visuals to the interface, showcasing both Simple Moving Average (SMA) and Exponential Moving Average (EMA) block intervals. These dedicated dials located at the screen’s bottom provide Operators with a real-time understanding of these critical parameters. It’s not just about presenting the data but presenting it in a way that’s intuitive and immediately actionable.
Historical and Real-Time Difficulty Display:
While most of the time, Operators might be interested in the current difficulty, understanding past trends can also be invaluable. When a node is synchronizing and is significantly behind the current state of the network, our UI smartly showcases difficulty from the relevant past timeframe. However, as the node catches up, nearing the “Edge of the Events’ Horizon,” it transitions smoothly to display the current difficulty. This ensures Operators are never left in the dark, irrespective of their node’s sync status. It’s all about striking a balance between historical insights and real-time data, ensuring Operators always have a holistic view.
4. Algorithm & Performance Optimizations:
Data-Block Scheduling and Downloading:
To keep up with the increasing demand and ensure our system stays ahead of the curve, we’ve engineered a more sophisticated data-block scheduling and downloading algorithm. This enhancement ensures faster, more efficient, and orderly synchronization of data across nodes. By prioritizing essential data and optimizing the data flow, we’ve mitigated potential bottlenecks and reduced the lag between data request and delivery.
Accelerated Transaction Propagation:
Speed is of the essence in today’s dynamic digital age. Acknowledging this, we’ve finetuned our transaction propagation mechanics, making it possible to achieve global transaction confirmations in under 15 seconds. This significant acceleration ensures that transactions are not just faster, but also more secure and reliable, fostering greater trust within the GRIDNET ecosystem.
Dynamic Smart Mem-Pool Adjustment:
A congested mem-pool can hinder optimal system performance. To address this, we’ve integrated a dynamic smart adjustment mechanism. This feature continuously monitors the mem-pool and intelligently adjusts the number of objects required for data-block formation, ensuring smoother, efficient block creation without overloading the system. Under the hood this employs an Exponential Moving Average whose alpha coefficient is also adjusted dynamically based on network conditions.
Enhanced Resilience against ‘Ninja’ Miners:
The decentralized world isn’t devoid of its set of challenges. One such challenge comes from powerful ‘ninja’ miners who can potentially disrupt the network balance. To counteract this, we’ve implemented a unique Exponential Moving Average (EMA) difficulty adjustment algorithm. This innovative solution continuously gauges the network’s mining power and dynamically adjusts mining difficulty, ensuring that all participants, regardless of their computational power, have a fair playing field.
Auto-Removal Mechanism for Block Processing:
Consistency and reliability are foundational pillars of our system. With this update, we’ve introduced an automatic removal mechanism for block processing. If parental blocks encounter an issue, any consecutive blocks dependent on them will be automatically dequeued from the block processing sequence. This proactive approach ensures that the integrity and accuracy of data are maintained, preventing potential cascading errors and ensuring a more stable, dependable system.
5. Operational Improvements:
Enhanced Bootstrap Sequence:
The initial configuration is the first touchpoint for our operators, and we believe in making first impressions that last. To that end, we’ve meticulously reworked the bootstrap sequence to deliver a more streamlined and user-friendly experience. By eliminating redundant queries related to the ‘local blockchain manager’, we’ve reduced the potential for configuration errors and accelerated the setup process. As a result, operators can swiftly transition to the Main-Net, the evolution of what was previously known as the Test-Net, ensuring a more efficient and hassle-free onboarding experience.
Priority Enhancements for Networking Threads:
To optimize our system’s responsiveness and ensure real-time data transfer and processing, we’ve redefined our operational hierarchy. Threads dedicated to networking operations, crucial for efficient data propagation and system syncing, are now prioritized at the ‘highest’ level. This restructuring ensures that these processes get the maximum computational bandwidth, reducing latencies and ensuring rapid and seamless network interactions.
Administrative Rights for Optimal Functionality:
The intricacies of GRIDNET Core’s operations delve deep into the system’s core, interacting with native functionalities of the host operating system. To facilitate these complex interactions and ensure that they occur without hitches, the software requires access to low-level functionalities. Therefore, running GRIDNET Core as an administrator is not just a suggestion—it’s a recommendation for unlocking the software’s full potential. By doing so, users ensure that thread scheduling, a critical component for multitasking operations, is handled at its most efficient level. This not only boosts performance but also ensures stability and reliability during intensive operations.
6. Transaction & Consensus Mechanics:
Reduction in Taxes:
Recognizing the need for a user-centric and economically balanced ecosystem, we have significantly revised our financial parameters. The decision to slash both the transaction tax and miner’s rewards tax by an order of magnitude is our direct response to market feedback and our ongoing commitment to encourage user participation and incentivize mining efforts. This strategic recalibration ensures GRIDNET’s competitive edge, making it more enticing for our user base.
Reinforced Timestamp Security for Fair Mining:
Timestamps, while ensuring the chronological consistency of blocks, also play a pivotal role in preventing manipulation tactics aimed at unfair mining advantages. Aware of attempts by certain entities to exploit timestamp adjustments for disproportionate rewards, we have intensified our security protocols around block timestamps. Our enhancements are specifically tailored to curtail the extent of timestamp modification, ensuring that no participant can unfairly skew the system in their favor. Through these measures, we are determined to uphold the sanctity of our consensus protocol, ensuring a level playing field for all miners and fortifying the system against malicious gaming tactics.
Advanced Nonce Management on Mobile:
Ensuring transactional accuracy and security on mobile platforms remains a cornerstone of our development strategy. We’ve optimized the nonce, an integral component in cryptographic validation, to improve its performance on our mobile app. By designing the nonce to increment only after a transaction is successfully broadcasted and ideally processed, we minimize potential conflicts and clashes, paving the way for efficient and seamless mobile transactions.
Some of the Bug Fixes:
- Resolved issues related to the Blockchain Manager. Blockchain Manager is the main component of any realm (test-net/main-net etc.). All the other related sub-systems report to this major component.
- Addressed a sequence processing glitch that sometimes left the system in an invalid state regarding the setting of the current leader.
- Corrected the amount of assets marked as locked during miners’ rewards issuance.
- Ensured that, by default, miners’ rewards go to a singular State-Domain (account) when no additional identities are active in GRIDNET Core. Specifically, the first descendant of the master key-chain.
- Removed redundant ‘synchronization seems stuck’ messages under certain conditions.
- Validated scenarios where nodes might be both mining and synchronizing, ensuring system coherence.
- Fixed unnecessary bootstrap sequence prompts about loading previous global configurations.
- Addressed some bootstrap questions not displaying their relevant sub-system or source.
- Rectified an issue where data blocks might have invalid timestamps.
- Fixed precision of reported difficulty while using the ‘chain’ GridScript utility
- Answering ‘e’ to multi-character questions during bootstrap stage would now properly trigger autonomous configuration for the rest of the following settings.
- Fixed a bug which, after changes to miners’ rewards have been introduced, would prevent rewards from old blocks not being proclaimed by new releases of GRIDNET Core due to discrepancies and validation mechanisms not honoring the previous values.
- Improved support of proof of work difficulty adjustment when block does not extend the current history of events but rather creates a fork somewhere deep.
- Optimized the way checkpoints are processed. Made sure that the checkpointing mechanics account for changes to the miners’ rewards as well.
(…) many other minor changes.
Closing Note:
This release stands as a testament to our commitment to delivering a robust, user-friendly, and resilient system. We encourage all users to update to GRIDNET Core 1.4.0 to benefit from these advancements. Your feedback and insights are invaluable to our journey of continuous improvement. Without you and without your constant support and evaluation, nothing of it would ever be possible.