- Filecoin’s drand network undergoes transformative adjustments to enhance sustainability and efficiency.
- Introduction of manual deal settlement aims to align costs with service beneficiaries for sustainability.
Filecoin recently announced the completion of its network upgrade, signifying a pivotal moment in its development. The update, dubbed Version 22 Dragon, is now fully operational after months of meticulous research and development, underscoring Filecoin’s commitment to progress and innovation.
The nv22 Dragon Upgrade introduces a host of innovative features and enhancements aimed at addressing challenges and optimizing network performance.
Notably, the upgrade incorporates Dragon Consensus, a novel consensus mechanism leveraging state-of-the-art cryptographic techniques. This mechanism enhances network security, scalability, and throughput, marking an advancement in decentralized consensus protocols.
The nv22 Dragon Upgrade introduces optimizations aimed at improving network efficiency and flexibility. These enhancements encompass to storage and retrieval markets, more streamlined block validation mechanisms, and heightened support for smart contracts and decentralized applications (dApps).
Filecoin Network Upgrade Complete!
We’re thrilled to announce that the Filecoin network upgrade has been completed!
Version 22 Dragon is live and running smoothly. Thank you to all node operators for your cooperation and support during this process.https://t.co/dieQ29oHNv
— Filecoin (@Filecoin) April 24, 2024
This upgrade is the simplification of the data onboarding process. By eliminating intermediaries, a direct data onboarding method streamlines data storage, reduces operational complexity, and lowers gas expenses, thereby improving the network’s effectiveness and user-friendliness.
Advancements in Drand Network Configuration
The League of Entropy’s drand network, which serves as a source of randomness for Filecoin, is undergoing a transition to a new network configuration. This change brings about several notable improvements and necessitates adjustments for Filecoin to align with the updated network.
The current operation of the drand network relies on a “chained mode” where each beacon is linked to its predecessor. However, the upgraded League of Entropy drand quicknet network introduces alterations to this setup.
With the new network, randomness beacons are no longer chained to previous ones, and they are generated at a higher frequency of once every 3 seconds, which conveniently aligns with Filecoin’s block time.
These modifications offer new opportunities for drand and its applications
Applications can now select subsets of rounds according to their required frequency, providing flexibility for operations. For instance, Filecoin can utilize 1 in every 10 beacons to meet its randomness needs every 30 seconds for Leader election. The unchained randomness feature reduces memory requirements and simplifies the verification process, enhancing efficiency.
Implications and Adjustments for Filecoin
Moreover, the shift to the new drand network is motivated by several factors. The existing drand network is slated for deprecation, and transitioning to the new network offers benefits such as smaller signatures in Filecoin headers and the introduction of timelock encryption, a valuable feature for user-deployed actors.
To ensure compatibility and efficiency, adjustments are needed in beacon verification and sourcing. Filecoin must adapt to fetch every 10th beacon instead of every beacon to align with its epochs. Blocks should include beacon entries corresponding to their height’s epoch, maintaining a unique beacon entry for every Filecoin epoch.
However, transitioning to the new drand network entails certain risks and requires careful implementation. Mitigations are in place to address potential challenges, including code improvements and extensive testing on testnet nodes.
Advancements in Drand Network Configuration
The League of Entropy’s drand network, important to Filecoin’s randomness sourcing, is undergoing a transformative shift.
The changes revolve around the removal of cron-based automatic deal settlement, a process previously integral to maintaining active deals within the network. The existing mechanism, while efficient in handling deal settlements, posed a significant risk of overwhelming the chain’s processing capacity.
This risk became particularly apparent as the number of active deals within the network surged, reaching approximately 45 million deals. The cost of maintaining this level of service through cron-based settlement became unsustainable and threatened the overall progress of the blockchain.
Implications and Adjustments for Filecoin
An important adjustment involves the introduction of a manual method for storage providers to settle deal payments. This manual settlement replaces the previous automatic settlement process, which proved to be unsustainable given the network’s burgeoning deal volume.
The shift towards manual settlement aims to align the cost of settling payments with the parties benefiting from the service, ensuring a more sustainable model for deal maintenance. Additionally, the proposal introduces immediate clean-up on deal termination, streamlining the process and minimizing unnecessary computational overhead.
Impact of Direct Data Onboarding
In tandem with these changes, a concurrent proposal aims to support skipping the built-in storage market actor for some data onboarding processes. While this presents a potential cost reduction for certain arrangements, the full impact depends on the adoption of these new onboarding methods.
Nevertheless, this shift underscores Filecoin’s commitment to optimizing its network operations and fostering a more competitive environment for storage applications and markets.
Additionally, the nv22 Dragon Upgrade introduces fresh economic incentives and governance mechanisms, encouraging increased participation and collaboration within the Filecoin ecosystem.
These improvements motivate miners to contribute resources while enabling users to influence Filecoin’s trajectory through decentralized decision-making processes.
The announcement of the nv22 Dragon Upgrade has elicited excitement within the Filecoin community, with stakeholders eagerly anticipating the enhanced capabilities it brings. Developers, miners, and users alike are poised to leverage these features, paving the way for a more efficient and user-friendly decentralized storage network.
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