As most of our users know, we are releasing our hardfork update on August 31st. We have received a lot of questions regarding how to adopt it, which we will answer today.
What is a hardfork?
A hardfork is an update that makes old versions of the software incompatible with the network at a certain point in time. In order to get prepared for it, read the instructions below.
How should a user prepare for the hardfork?
Preparing for the hardfork is as easy as could possible be:
If you’re using the Bytecoin Desktop Wallet, just update to version 3.3 and that’s it. No blockchain resync necessary. Don’t forget to backup the wallet file before you update.
If you have your funds on bytecoin.money or any of our partner exchanges, you don’t need to do anything. In fact, you can even continue trading.
When will the hardfork happen?
At a certain time in the next several weeks after August 31st 2018. Over this period our partners, miners, and users with the Bytecoin Desktop Wallet are encouraged to update to version 3.3. Once updated, their software will start marking the blocks with specific information, showing that they have adopted the new software. Once the volume of blocks with the new version in a 24 hour period will reach 90%, the switch will happen, meaning the blocks created by the old version might not be accepted. If you have updated, you will not notice anything.
What will the hardfork bring?
The 3.3 release brings the following features that will become available once the hardfork occurs:
Dynamic fees. Previously, the fee was proportional to the size of the transaction, but no lower than 0.01 BCN. This release disables this lower margin.
Over 60 improvements in the Bytecoin Software, including fixes to public methods, JSON commands, the Keccak function, and many other. This release gives us the opportunity to get rid of a lot of previous limitations to make Bytecoin more reliable, convenient, and performant.
Please message support@bytecoin.org if you have any questions or issues with the upcoming release.
All the best,
The Bytecoin Team