Weekly Update: W/C 10th January, 2022

Good evening all 👋

We’ve had another busy week!

The week began with an update to the command line interface. CLI v1.5.3 was released for testnet, and then shortly after, mainnet too. It introduced a number of Docker-related improvements including fixes for Windows/MacOS devices running docker for the first time, and improvements to the status bar during updates.

Stargate v2.2.0-96, Gateway v2.1.0-54, and Host v2.1.0-41 were then deployed to mainnet on Tuesday. These updates introduced latency monitoring to the network on an individual node level, along with network traffic metrics for operations monitoring, plus a whole bunch of other internal updates. The updates were deployed smoothly, as you can see from these images:

There was then a followup hotfix deployed to mainnet, with Stargate v2.2.1-98 fixing a small issue with the latency checks that had been deployed earlier that day.

Stargate v2.2.2-102 followed on Wednesday with a refinement to the way that latency is recorded, improving the accuracy of the values collected. The latency allows us to monitor individual node performance, but also the network as a whole through trends.

Later that day, Wallet v1.9.1 was deployed to mainnet, bringing UX fixes and improvements, including streamlined wallet creation (see below), a confirmation prompt to forgetting a wallet, and various other fixes here and there. The first of two updates to the wallet, with another one due next week ahead of us opening up the source for the web wallet.

Stargate v2.2.3-106 was also deployed to mainnet, adding system metrics for Stargate nodes, with further metrics expected to be added for Gateways, and then Hosts in the coming weeks.

Finally, Stargate v2.2.4-108 & Gateway v2.1.1-56 were deployed to mainnet, introducing session timeouts for network nodes that fail to send heartbeats for 30s. Heartbeats are sent every 5s by every node on the network. This resolved an issue where some nodes with poor network connectivity had open connections but no ability to send or receive messages from Gateways or Stargates.

As you can see, we release updates often. By having a shorter release cycle, we’re able to get critical functionality out sooner. We’re able to deliver features sooner and more frequently this way, and additionally, it reduces the complexity of testing. To avoid clogging up the 📢│announcements channel in Discord with the frequent updates, we’ve instead started posting these notifications in 💾│releases.

Behind the scenes, work has been ongoing on the next wallet version (v1.10.0) which we expect to release next week. The mobile wallet app, which is going through a user interface redesign, is looking great, and we look forward to talking more about that soon. As you may have read in the general channel, we’ve also been working on Edge Compute, which comes in two formats: servers and serverless. We’ll be writing more about that in the coming weeks too and this is one we’re excited for.

We’ve also been working on the v2 layer that handles automatic SSL certificate generation. This key piece of infrastructure is one of a number of milestones before we’re able to migrate production CDN integrations from v1 to v2.

We’ve been making a bunch of progress on the structure and processes around the governance of the project as we move towards operating as a DAO. This includes some enhancements to the tokenomics of the platform. The first community votes will take place in Discord, ahead of the governance section of the wallet being released. This will allow us to move faster than we otherwise could. The first votes will take place over the course of the next month or so. 🗳️

Now, over the last couple of weeks you may have noticed that the Discord server has had something of a facelift, and we have a few more improvements to announce today. We’ve created two new Discord roles: the Code Contributor role and the Network Contributor role. Those of you who contribute code to the open source projects will receive the Code Contributor role and gain access to the exclusive Coder’s Lounge, whereas those of you who run network nodes will receive the Network Contributor role and gain access to the Network Room. Those of you who run nodes and would like to receive the role, please let us know in the 🔗│network-support channel.

Stake migrations are underway. We’re aiming to have them completed as quickly as possible. It’s a semi manual process, so bear with us.

Please ensure that you make your request with your Console account email to make it easier for us to process. Also for Founding Node requests, please include your original staking transaction or your device name if you can find it.

Don’t forget to check your inbox and spam messages for emails from us to confirm your request. If anything is unclear, you can always ask in Discord or drop @Bjay or @RickKamp a DM.

The remaining payouts for 2021 are expected to be completed this weekend.

The latest issue of our weekly newsletter dropped yesterday. You can read it here: https://ed.ge/digest/issue-27

And if you’re not signed up, sign up now: https://edge.press/

If you missed last weeks update, you can read it right here on site now: https://ed.ge/update/2022/01/03

And the latest episode of our little podcast can be listened to here:

And that’s it! Have a good weekend everyone ✨