Our development team has written an ARK Improvement Proposal for core protocol upgrades. We would like to get feedback from delegates and the ARK community before any changes are implemented.

While we review community feedback on this AIP and adjust accordingly, we are going to push the “fixed fee reduction” as we promised on DevNet for quick initial testing next week. As soon as we are satisfied with the new fees and tests on DevNet,it will be pushed to MainNet. It will be a simple upgrade for all registered delegates running a node.

LINK TO AIP : https://github.com/ArkEcosystem/AIPs/blob/master/AIPS/aip-11.md

How will we handle all of this?

AIP for new protocol upgrade released (click). Fixed fee reduction. Push code to DevNet nodes next week. Receive and review community input on AIP. Push reduced fee update to MainNet after DevNet tests. Begin coding on new protocol changes. Release new beta protocol changes to DevNet for testing. Test and re-test and re-re-test and re-re-re-test protocol upgrades thoroughly. Did we mention we will re-re-re-re-test protocol at some point? Upgrade MainNet with new protocol changes.

What will the changes bring?

For most users, the experience won’t change much. The network will be more responsive and transactions will no longer be refused if your computer clock is not synchronized. However a couple of more options will be possible, in order to create a more secure experience:

Transactions can expire, meaning that if for some reason (internet connectivity, fees too low, third party retention…) your transaction has not entered the blockchain, somebody won’t be able to replay it at a later date. To use the TX expiration feature you will need a client which has its clock synchronized.

Delegates will be able to set a constant to determine the fees for their active delegate. Some automatic tools will be proposed to easily determine the fees, but you will be able to make your own if needed.

More services will be supported. Above all, this upgrade is needed for POSA payments using your Ledger key.