ETC Weekly 10| Saturn Protocol ETC DeFi, ECC 2020 Review, Mantis, Besu Guides & Keccak Mining, ECIP-1103: Magneto EVM & Protocol Upgrades
This edition highlights the latest news and developments regarding protocol upgrades, the Keccak-256 update, IOHK’s Mantis projects and the upcoming Saturn DeFi platform.
Thank you for reading the 10th edition of the ETC Weekly newsletter! You may have noticed we took a short hiatus, but now we’re back! We recently had to focus our efforts to deliver the ETC Cooperative 2020 Retrospective and 2021 Roadmap. With transparency at our core, we will very soon share both documents with the community.
Below we highlight notable events, developments, updates, and happenings in the Ethereum Classic ecosystem. Sign up here!
Saturn Protocol V2 Coming in Q2 2021
Saturn Protocol v2 is a major upgrade to the protocol that powers our decentralized exchange. The successful launch of Saturn protocol v2 will mark the completion of the Prometheus stage of our roadmap. It introduces a number of key new features that improve the protocol across the board for all its investors, users and stakeholders.
There is still work left on protocol migration and user interface among other things. By now it should be quite clear that DeFi is the way. Saturn is taking the precautions to build something that is future proof. They plan on sharing their 2021 roadmap later this quarter. For now they’re focused on shipping protocol v2.
Find more information about Saturn Protocol V2. See the article below.
Below you’ll find the excerpt from the original blog post which can be found here written by ETC Cooperative’s Director of Developer Relations, Stevan Lohja.
We are pleased to announce ETC Cooperative’s 2020 Retrospective. The mission of the ETC Coop is to steward the development of the Ethereum Classic protocol and to support the growth of a mature ecosystem around that protocol.There are three pillars to this mission:
Accelerate adoption of ETC technology by individuals and enterprises through effective branding, marketing and education.
Foster collaboration between ecosystem participants including developers, miners, investors, enterprises and end-users.
Mature Governance and Transparency — efficient and transparent governance framework, including use of funds.
This 2020 retrospective for the ETC Coop is organized around these three pillars — Adoption, Collaboration, and Governance. The retrospective is another product of the revamp of the ETC Cooperative’s governance and transparency which was put in place at the Annual General Meeting held on 17th March 2020.
Keccak-256 Mining Support for Hyperledger Besu
ETC Cooperative has finalized its Keccak-256 statement of work with Antoine Toulme, a former protocol engineer at Conensys and CTO at WhiteBlock. The scope of work includes integrating Keccak mining support into Hyperledger Besu, delivering a functioning Astor testnet, providing assistance to run the Astor testnet, and several other items.
Work began on implementing Keccak-256 mining support into Hyperledger Besu. The ECC will soon share a blog covering milestones, work and the pathway forward for SHA3–ETC
Keccak-256 Ethereum Classic Resources
Installing Hyperledger Besu — Enterprise Ethereum Client, video by Stevan Lohja
How to Use Hyperledger Besu on Windows, video by Stevan Lohja
Keccak-256 Videos and Interviews Resources
Below, Keccak ECIP-1049 author, Alex Tsankov, presents his vision of SHA3 for ETC POW at the Vancouver ETC Summit.
“ETC should adopt SHA3. POW”
Alex was most recently interviewed by Donald McIntyre, Founder of Etherplan.com. The primary focus was on the “Ethereum Classic Coalition” and how the Ethash → Keccak-256 migration will work.
In this interview, Alex Tsankov talks to Donald McIntyre about the SHA 3 Classic Coalition which is a group of ETC engineers and participants implementing an integration, testnet, and eventual deployment to change the Ethereum Classic mining algorithm.
The Ethereum Classic SHA-3 Coalition and Migration With ECIP-1049 Author Alex Tsankov
Get Started on the Astor Testnet
Astor Network is an Ethereum testnet that uses SHA3 as its proof of work method. SHA3 allows for a higher performance, and safer block production. Astor is based on ECIP-1049 which was proposed for Ethereum Classic in response to the 51% attack of January 2019.
Recently the ETC Cooperative’s Director of Developer Relations, Stevan Lohja, shared a post about running his Besu node — seen below.
ECIP-1103: Magneto EVM and Protocol Upgrades
Recently ETC Core developer, Afri Schoedon, proposed the Magneto hard-fork upgrade. Magneto is comprised of the outstanding Ethereum Foundation’s Berlin network protocol upgrades for Ethereum Classic, code-named Magneto. It will enable maximum compatibility across these networks. These changes have all been in use on the Ethereum network since early 2021.
Learn more about Magneto in ECIP-1109 in the ECIP repository.
Latest Ethereum Classic Node Clients
In the meantime prior to the Magneto hard-fork or even reaching a rough consensus on the ECIP, please make sure your node is updated to the latest version, compatible with the Thanos hard-fork — compatible nodes seen below.
Hyperledger Besu v21.1.0 (Latest release)
Hyperledger Besu comes with a large amount of documentation and other resource content, all of which can be found below.
IOHK Mantis Client v3.2.1 (Mantis revival phase 3)
This is the third of the three phase series of Mantis revival releases that will prototype version of Treasury + Check-pointing to ETC network.
IOHK February: Mantis Client, Mantis , Sagano Testnet, and More
Mantis is a fully featured client and wallet UI, developed from the ground up and written in Scala for the Ethereum Classic network (ETC). Created by IOHK to add robustness and variety to the ETC’s client share, it includes optimizations and network upgrades that improve network security, sustainability, and performance in the long term.
The software follows the official Ethereum Classic specification and roadmap and also implements Ethereum Classic Improvement Proposals (ECIPs) introduced by ongoing efforts and discussed across teams in the ecosystem.
Since the return of IOHK to the ecosystem, the team has been working on various ETC proposals on their node client, testing ECIPs on their newly created Sagano testnet, and providing frequent community updates. You can find more information by going to Mantisclient.io. These changes will eventually be made available on the Ethereum Classic network.
Sagano: Mantis testnet
Mantis is in the final stages of internal testing for a fully implemented ‘Sagano’ testnet, which will be publicly available externally in the coming weeks. This testnet highlights Mantis’ and IOG’s commitment to push innovation within the ETC ecosystem. The two initial features the Sagano testnet will feature are Checkpointing and Proto-Treasury.
Contact IOHK for further information on how to participate and join the testnet.
Sagano Faucet & Explorer
The Sagano Faucet and Explorer are key tools needed in order to use the Sagano testnet correctly.
Instructions on how to use them can be found in the How-To section.
Sagano Roadmap
Future testnet releases look to support the evolution of Ethereum Classic, protocol improvements to be potentially explored and proposed are:
Mantis Roadmap
Future Implementations and development efforts for Mantis can be reviewed in this Discussion Roadmap.
Note: This is a discussion roadmap, this isn’t definite and will highly depend on where the Ethereum Classic community chooses to focus its efforts.
Implemented Features
Some new features have already been implemented in the current version of Mantis, but are actively being worked on and improved.
Checkpointing
Via it’s provably secure Checkpointing System, the Sagano testnet is resilient to 51% attacks, giving protection to the chain and confidence to the user that the system is secure.
Proto-Treasury
The Sagano testnet integrates a proto-treasury, the first iteration of a treasury system which distributes a portion of block rewards to approved members. It offers a stable and reliable funding mechanism ensuring the development of the Ethereum Classic platform as well as for maintaining core clients.
Future Implementations — Keccak-256
ECIP 1049 Implementation of the Sha-3–256 Standard Proof of Work algorithm for Ethereum Classic.
The Secure Hash Algorithm-3 (SHA3) standard implementation adds several benefits to the ETC Network, including discouraging the recent 51% mining attacks; allowing smart contracts to be verified on chain; and making multiple layer 2 additions possible.
KEVM + Firefly
The KEVM work formalized an existing virtual machine design. This new virtual machine has the potential for being faster than EVM, inherently more resistant to smart contract exploits, and designed to make proofs of contract correctness easier
Using the Firefly tool on your contracts reduces the work needed for formal verification and offers improved testing, assurance, and performance to your smart contracts
NiPoPoWs / Flyclient
Support for Non-Interactive Proofs of Proof-of-Work will allow the user to sync a node in just a few seconds, without resorting to centralized services. Move your ETC back and forth to other chains (in the future). Greatly improved resource usage allows you to run Mantis on a Raspberry Pi or a phone.
While these are just the many proposed items intended to be implemented in ETC, we feel it’s essential for stakeholders and community members alike dig a little deeper to fully understand them before any debate can take place. The Mantis Client website is a great place to start. IOHK has brought with it a renewed sense of innovation, vision, and overall interest back into this ecosystem.
To our readers!
We truly hope you enjoy reading ETC Weekly as much as we love making it for you!! Got any feedback? We’d love to hear from you — the good, the bad, and ugly! Find our contact information in the details below. See you soon!
