Nov 15, 2023 Upgrade

What happened ?

The planned upgrade of the eCash network has successfully been completed. The first post-upgrade block is block number 818670.

Who needs to upgrade?

All operators of a Bitcoin ABC full node must upgrade to the latest major version (0.28.12). This includes node operators, Avalanche staking nodes, Miners and Exchanges. The up-to-date node version is available at our Releases page.

What features are included in the Network Upgrade?

Staking Rewards

A block policy is added that 10% of the block reward is allocated as a staking reward. There is one recipient in each block, chosen from the avalanche quorum. The reward is sent to the Proof `payoutAddress` field, chosen deterministically from the quorum based on the previous block hash, with probability weighted by the Proof's stake amount.

Miner fund increase

The miner fund, part of the block reward that is funding eCash network development, was increased from 8% of the block reward to 32%.

eCash miners must ensure that their mining setup is properly configured to use the proper miner fund amount. This information is available via the `getblocktemplate` RPC.

How do I upgrade?

The process of upgrading your node is straightforward: simply stop the currently running node, download the new version, and start the new version. Here are some example instructions for upgrading from version 0.27.15 to the latest version (0.28.12) on Linux:

  • Shut down the node: ./bitcoin-abc-0.27.15/bin/bitcoin-cli stop
  • Download the new version archive from the website: wget https://download.bitcoinabc.org/0.28.12/linux/bitcoin-abc-0.28.12-x86_64-linux-gnu.tar.gz
  • Extract the archive: tar xzf bitcoin-abc-0.28.12-x86_64-linux-gnu.tar.gz
  • Restart the node with the new version: ./bitcoin-abc-0.28.12/bin/bitcoind -daemon
  • Clean up old version and archives (optional):
    • rm -rf bitcoin-abc-0.27.15
    • rm -f bitcoin-abc-0.27.15-x86_64-linux-gnu.tar.gz
    • rm -f bitcoin-abc-0.28.12-x86_64-linux-gnu.tar.gz

Do I need to upgrade my wallet?

The network upgrade only affects full nodes. Other eCash software, including wallets such as Electrum ABC are not affected by the network upgrade.