Node Operators Preparing for Genesis Game
Last year, Enigma launched our networked testnet, which represents the start of a new phase in our development. Of course, building a decentralized protocol for private computation requires multiple layers of complexity. If you want to learn about Enigma, please visit our website and read our blog. The project is fully open source, and we hope you dig into the code on GitHub.
Full Documentation:
https://enigma.co/discovery-documentation
What happened in the past three weeks?
Since our first networked testnet launched on December 23, members of the Enigma Collective and other volunteers have been participating in tests related to the immediate goal of network stabilization, a prerequisite for beginning the Genesis Game. Enigma was running three bootstrap nodes plus one additional node, and at some point, five other external nodes joined the network successfully. A few secret contracts were also deployed, and the network remained alive for three weeks.
As expected, we discovered and addressed some issues while running our live testnet. We started noticing new nodes not being able to join anymore, one node crashed unable to recover, and the state was not being synced properly across nodes. We worked in parallel to address the issues as we identified them (e.g. the sync bytecode fix). Considering the need for improvements in various repositories (contract, p2p, core, kubernetes, etc), we will be releasing new code and redeploying the testnet.
What can I do right now?
Our team is deploying an updated version of testnet to resolve issues found in past cycles. When it’s ready, just follow these instructions to join the network. You should monitor the results of the Genesis Game warmups and verify the reported uptime matches your expectations.
A new version of the Enigma contract was deployed on Jan 15th. The key management node and three bootstrap nodes will be redeployed in the coming days. We need a few days to run a number of tests and deploy additional infrastructure in a controlled environment. Once we are satisfied with the outcome, we will start welcoming external nodes again ~ possibly next week.
For those of you who have live nodes, you can temporarily take them down, or you can just do nothing (the nodes will stop connecting to their peers as we take these down) and simply wait until we let you know the network is fully operational again and ready for you. When the timeline for Genesis Game is announced, our team will provide an update regarding testnet ENG distribution.
How will I know when it’s time to do something else?
Our team is committed to transparency. We’ll post all updates here on the developers forum and on Discord. Please reply to this post if you have interest in helping support our testnet at this early stage and you haven’t connected with us yet.
Follow network activity using our new testnet block explorer!
Don’t hesitate to reach out with general feedback or any specific questions. Your input is very helpful as we make progress toward stable release of the Enigma Protocol. Thanks for your continued support!