What happened?

The planned upgrade of the eCash network has successfully been completed. The first post-upgrade block is block number 923348

Who needs to upgrade?

All operators of a Bitcoin ABC full node must upgrade to the latest major version 0.32 (current latest version is 0.32.4). This includes node operators, Avalanche staking nodes, Miners and Exchanges. This is available at the Bitcoin ABC Releases Page.

What features are included in the Network Upgrade?

This upgrade includes several new protocol features:

Avalanche Pre-Consensus

Pre-Consensus allows nodes to finalize transactions using the Avalanche protocol. Finalized transactions are protected from double-spending by rejecting blocks containing transactions that conflict with them.

This means that transactions can be relied on within 2-3 seconds with a high degree of trust, since finalized transactions are protected from double spending by Avalanche-enabled eCash nodes.

See the Pre-Consensus launch announcement for more information on this new feature.

64-Bit Integers in Script

After this upgrade, 64-bit integers (63 value bits + 1 sign bit) are enabled. This is an increase from the 31+sign-bit range that was previously active on Script.

This improvement allows more finely grained Script smart contracts, for example enabling more precise prices for large Agora offers.

Heartbeat update

A 1-block window was added to the Real-Time Target calculation. This is a refinement to reduce an artifact in the Heartbeat behaviour in particular the case where two blocks are mined in quick succession

See the eCash Mining page for more details.

Staking Rewards Pre-Consensus

With this feature, eCash staking nodes use Avalanche polling to come to consensus on the staking reward winner for the next block before it is mined. This makes the network more robust while retaining the previous staking reward behavior.

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 0.31.13 to the latest version (0.32.4) on Linux:

• Shut down the node: ./bitcoin-abc-0.31.13/bin/bitcoin-cli stop
• Download the new version archive from the website: wget https://download.bitcoinabc.org/0.32.4/linux/bitcoin-abc-0.32.4-x86_64-linux-gnu.tar.gz
• Extract the archive: tar xzf bitcoin-abc-0.32.4-x86_64-linux-gnu.tar.gz
• Restart the node with the new version: ./bitcoin-abc-0.32.4/bin/bitcoind -daemon
• Clean up old version and archives (optional):
  • rm -rf bitcoin-abc-0.31.13
  • rm -f bitcoin-abc-0.31.13-x86_64-linux-gnu.tar.gz
  • rm -f bitcoin-abc-0.32.4-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.