April 23rd, 2018 at 8:11 pm UTC · 3 min read
In November of 2017 ARK announced that whilst the ARK Network had proven itself a fast and reliable network with a committed community, it was time to completely overhaul the ARK core code after identifying key elements within the core design that could be improved.
The final testing phase for ARK core V2 is underway and it is nearly ready for public testing on the Devnet. It is not clear for how long it will remain in testing, and when it will reach the Mainnet, but once public, the world is invited to hack, test or review it, report bugs, suggest improvements, and any other improvement they wish to offer.
The v2 core is fully compatible with the v1 protocol and in order to make the transition, a hard fork will be necessary and the new block height will be announced when ARK is ready to.
Until then, any other date announced by others is just speculation. Here is a small breakdown of some of the hottest topics surrounding the upgrade.
Block times will not be changed, there are no plans in place to decrease block creation times as there is no reason to do so.
Block times are inherently linked to network latencies when establishing consensus, reducing the number of nodes, delegates and controlling the location of dedicated servers undermines the premise of decentralization.
Therefore, the number of delegates will remain as it is at 51. Increasing this number would require a great deal of extensive testing and would increase latencies dramatically and would most likely require decreasing TPS and increasing blocktimes.
Fee reduction has been a particularly requested topic from the community, which is understandable considering the increasing price of ARK over the past year. ARK Core v1 presently has integrated flexible fees but this was unavailable at the client and block creation level.
However ARK Core v2 will enable this without the need for a hard fork, making ARK the first ever DPoS Blockchain to have a dynamic fee structure.
In summary, ARK Core v2 is bringing with it a huge amount of new features, it will be 100% backwards compatible for an easier transition to the new codebase, it’s modularized, faster and more accessible for hackers, making it easier to use and contribute.
ARK core v2 is a brilliant new chapter and one of ARKs proudest moments, to see the full list and in-depth explanations of all the brilliant new features, view this ARK blog post.
Disclaimer: ARK is the source of this content. Virtual currency is not legal tender, is not backed by the government, and accounts and value balances are not subject to consumer protections. This press release is for informational purposes only. The information does not constitute investment advice or an offer to invest.