We are happy to announce that the development and internal testing of ARK Core v2.6 has been completed and the largest Core release to date is now ready to be extensively tested publicly on our Development Network (Devnet) starting Tuesday 15th of October 2019.

Devnet is ARK’s public testing network, where anyone can participate, test or join to observe progress.

In this blog post we will provide more information on this feature-packed release, the plan for migration and an outline of the bounties you can earn by just testing and reporting issues (yup, you can earn ARK tokens just by finding an issue).

After months of non-stop development by our dedicated team, Core v2.6 is finally here. First and foremost, we just wanted to say that we’re truly proud and amazed by the work that our developers do every single day and we would all like to thank them for their dedication, enthusiasm and long nights working towards this release. We love you and all of this is possible because of YOU, so thank you!

What is Core V2.6?

Now on to the good stuff. Core v2.6 will be a massive feature-packed update with a number of new transaction types and features all enabling you to do more with ARK. Here’s a very quick overview of some of the most notable new features:

New Transaction Types

Multipayments — sending transactions up to 500 recipients within one transaction.

sending transactions up to 500 recipients within one transaction. IPFS — IPFS compliant hash saved on the ARK blockchain.

IPFS compliant hash saved on the ARK blockchain. Multi-signatures — Schnorr-based multi-signature system allows the signing of transactions from multiple keys based on the predefined minimum signatures required for successful validation.

— Schnorr-based multi-signature system allows the signing of transactions from multiple keys based on the predefined minimum signatures required for successful validation. Delegate Resignation — for delegates who wish to resign from being delegates.

for delegates who wish to resign from being delegates. Bridgechain Registrations — giving bridgechains an option to register on the ARK blockchain to gain awesome perks such as an option for automatic inclusion within the upcoming marketplace, automated discovery within desktop and mobile wallets and the ability to build a universal explorer with information regarding all registered bridgechains within the Ecosystem.

— giving bridgechains an option to register on the ARK blockchain to gain awesome perks such as an option for automatic inclusion within the upcoming marketplace, automated discovery within desktop and mobile wallets and the ability to build a universal explorer with information regarding all registered bridgechains within the Ecosystem. Hashed Time-Lock Contracts — will open some of the new features required for swaps and interoperability within our ecosystem.

2. Generic Transaction Interface

GTI — decouples transaction logic from Core and makes it easier for developers to quickly develop new use cases and introduce their own logic to new transaction types.

3. Schnorr signatures

Schnorr’s signature schema — which is a more performant based algorithm than ECSDA (the algorithm we are currently using).

4. Nonces

Nonces for transactions — make the blockchain even more robust and secure.

A full breakdown of upcoming features and what they mean (for developers) will follow over the next few weeks in a series of blog posts that will be published, so stay tuned.

In the meantime, if you want to learn more about Core v2.6 features check out this blog post: https://blog.ark.io/ark-core-path-and-vision-to-v3-7a8bc3338d5a.

Migration & Plan

Migration of the Core v2.6 on Devnet will start on Tuesday, 15th of October 2019 at 16:00 UTC (4 pm UTC), with new transaction types becoming enabled via milestone; giving delegates enough time to update and also giving people enough time to play with some edge cases that can occur prior to new transaction types becoming available. More on that will be explained in the 2.6 launch blog post.

After the migration to Core v2.6 on Devnet, an extensive testing period will begin. While we cannot exactly predict how long this will take due to a sheer number of new features that need to be properly tested before we can roll out the official release, we can almost certainly say it will take us at least a month of proper testing.

All of the necessary steps to migration will be posted with the 2.6 Devnet launch blog post, but make sure to join our Slack (#devnet channel) to keep track of the progress and get involved!

Bounties: Earn ARK For Testing & Reporting

Here’s how you can get involved. Once 2.6 is live on Devnet, we’ll be having an initial ‘beta’ public testing period. We will announce when reporting issues will be eligible for bounties once Devnet is upgraded. This means that you can earn ARK tokens in exchange for simply reporting issues related to Core v2.6! What’s even better though is that when we talk about “issues” we don’t just mean bugs and fixes. These can also be improvement suggestions, performance suggestions, implementation suggestions (in the scope of Core v2.6) — basically if they have some merit and our Core devs accept it as valid, you’ll earn ARK tokens. Plus if you provide a pull-request for it that will count towards the normal monthly bounty we are running throughout the year (https://bounty.ark.io).

We pay up to $100 (paid in the equivalent value of ARK at the end of the program) per reported Core v2.6 issue. Depending on the scope and impact, each valid issue will get assigned a monetary tag:

$15 — small bugs, features, performance or improvement suggestions

small bugs, features, performance or improvement suggestions $30 — medium bugs, features, performance or improvement suggestions

medium bugs, features, performance or improvement suggestions $60 — severe bugs, features, performance or improvement suggestions

severe bugs, features, performance or improvement suggestions $100 — critical bugs, features, performance or improvement suggestions

So after evaluation of the issue, you’ll know how much it will net you.

You’ll also be able to track everything via a special leaderboard (link coming in an upcoming post), which will also serve as a “competition” for the top 3 reporters (details outlined below).

Top reporters related to Devnet v2.6 testing will also be eligible for a special bonus:

$1,000 Reward for the reporter that has the highest USD Value (of valid confirmed issues) at the end of the testing period

$500 Reward for the reporter that has the second-highest USD Value (of valid confirmed issues) at the end of the testing period

$250 Reward for the reporter that has the third-highest USD Value (of valid confirmed issues) at the end of the testing period

All of the issues will need to be opened via ARK’s Core Github repository at http://github.com/arkecosystem/core/issues with detailed information on what the bug does, how to reproduce the bug, and even a potential solution. If you’re suggesting an improvement then please provide detailed information on what feature/performance/improvement can be implemented.

Everyone is invited to participate to help us test, find and report as many issues as possible. You can also propose fixes or improvements by opening PRs in our GitHub which counts towards our monthly developer bounty program and the annual Hacktoberfest (https://hacktoberfest.digitalocean.com/)!

Get more info on how to get involved by joining our Slack (channel #devnet)!

This special bounty testing program will run for a limited time only (while Core v2.6 is in ‘beta’ phase), after this initial wider testing phase we will switch back to the normal bounty structure and security reports (https://bounty.ark.io). After this special bounty program has ended, we’ll prepare a ‘release candidate’ that will run on the Devnet for some time before we officially release Core v2.6 to the world. Once the ‘release candidate’ is pushed to Devnet, our regular bounty structure goes back into effect. So if you’re looking for a way to earn ARK while helping us test the network, now’s the time to get involved!

To make testing even easier, we will also prepare a simple script that can be used to broadcast new transaction types (and old ones) from CLI (but more on that on in the 2.6 Devnet launch post) — get ready!