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Dear Community,

The month of September saw our developer teams progress with the SDK and the Lisk Builders get with experimenting with our toolkit. There are also some exciting news from our UI team for hardware wallet fanatics. Here are the main takeaways:

SDK

We released Lisk SDK 2.3.6 along with four patches (from 2.3.3 to 2.3.6).

The above releases are focused on resolving the instability on the Mainnet, which did not happen on the Testnet or the internal testings.

We also update you the Byzantine Fault Tolerance (BFT) consensus and full implementation of the P2P layer the team is working on for the next versions of Lisk SDK.

UI

Lisk Hub 1.21.0 was released, includes discreet mode and German language localization.

Lisk Hub 1.22.0 will add support for the Trezor One hardware wallet, the fourth device after already supporting Ledger Nano S, Ledger Nano, X, Trezor Model T.

Lisk Builders

SidechainSolutions’ Lemii launched Community Security Bounty and is developing the Lisk Dynamic Forging Controller (Lisk DFC)

Delegate ThePool is working on a proof of concept application using the Alpha SDK.

Community member GYM has submitted several issues to the Lisk bug bounty program.

SDK

Lisk SDK 2.3.6 was released to resolve instability on Mainnet caused by older versions of nodes

We released Lisk SDK 2.3.6 along with four patches (2.3.3 to 2.3.6). The development team responsible for the implementation of the new P2P layer for Lisk focused on resolving several issues which happened when the new `Partial Network` nodes interacted with older `Full Mesh Network` ones. When releasing to Mainnet, we found that broadhash consensus among nodes was lower than usual. The main reason for this was due to low block propagation caused by the peer selection function unevenly sending blocks between `Inbound` and `Outbound` peers (#4271). This was resolved by ensuring that half of a node’s peers are selected from the inbound list and half from the outbound list. We further stabilized broadhash consensus by adding a periodic “update status” job on outbound peer connections to keep the node up-to-date (#4261). Another issue was found in which peer buckets were growing over the specified limits. The fix to this issue should allow for more efficient use of resources (#4279). For more information on the topic of new nodes, check out our previous LiskDevUpdate.

The “lisk-p2p” Library is Getting Ready to Add More Features in Lisk SDK 3.0.0

Finally, the team worked on improving both unit (#4227) and integration (#4199) test coverage for the `lisk-p2p` library in Lisk Elements, as well as refactoring code to resolve a cyclomatic complexity issue (#3859). With better test coverage, `lisk-p2p` library development can speed up by being able to identify issues earlier and with ease.

Upcoming BFT Consensus — Rewriting the New DPoS Module Has Been Completed

This month we hit a major milestone towards finishing the development of Lisk SDK 3.0.0, which is scheduled to feature Lisk’s new BFT consensus. The development of the DPoS module has been completed (#3680) and we already replaced it with the old Rounds module. All code and database components related to the old Rounds module have been removed (#3685). And of course, we added full unit and integration test coverage for the DPoSmodule (#4249). DPoS module is currently being tested against Testnet and Mainnet (#3686). We found that some exceptions on our Testnet are not compatible with our new implementation and are breaking syncing (#4194). However, this problem doesn’t exist on Mainnet. You can read more about the upcoming BFT consensus in Nazar’s post on Hacker Noon.

Alongside that, we completed some of the other essential and shared components of Fast Chain Switching and Block Synchronization mechanisms like restoring blocks from temporary storage (#3775).

UI

Lisk Hub 1.21.0 was released, includes discreet mode and German language localization

Last month, we released the final version of Lisk Hub 1.21.0 with several handy features. You can find out more about them in our previous dev update.

Lisk Hub 1.22.0 will add support for the Trezor One hardware wallet

We keep on improving support for hardware wallets in Lisk Hub, having already included Ledger Nano S, Ledger Nano, X, Trezor Model T. During the development of this release, we have spent a considerable amount of time on refactoring the whole hardware wallets module to make it more modular and abstract away API differences of individual vendors. We did this to make adding support for a new hardware wallet as easy as possible and involves only writing a module that converts the vendor-specific API into a common API for all hardware wallets.

WIth this in place, it was pretty straightforward to add support for Trezor One. The only specific of this hardware wallet is how the device is unlocked by PIN. All the previously supported models handle entering PIN by their own buttons or touch screen and don’t require any support in the desktop app for unlocking the device. If the device is locked, it doesn’t even show up on the desktop app. Trezor One, however, uses a blind metrix (for more info see official Trezor docs) for entering the PIN. To solve this, we have implemented the PIN page (see screenshot below). This update is aimed for Lisk Hub 1.22.0.

Lisk Builders

Over the past few months, Lemii has continued his impressive output, launching a Community Security Bounty and building the Lisk Dynamic Forging Controller (Lisk DFC) with guidance and support from StellarDynamic. Lisk DFC has been developed to provide controller and monitoring services to help manage forger nodes. You can check out all the details on the Sidechain Solutions GitHub and keep up to date with the latest bounty initiatives on Discord.

with guidance and support from StellarDynamic. Lisk DFC has been developed to provide controller and monitoring services to help manage forger nodes. You can check out all the details on the Sidechain Solutions GitHub and keep up to date with the latest bounty initiatives on Discord. Delegate ThePool are working on a proof of concept application using the Alpha SDK. More information will be revealed shortly but in the meantime, you can give them a follow on Twitter to track their progress or reach out directly if you’re interested in contributing.

using the Alpha SDK. More information will be revealed shortly but in the meantime, you can give them a follow on Twitter to track their progress or reach out directly if you’re interested in contributing. Community member GYM has submitted several issues to the Lisk bug bounty program.

Always use third party tools with caution.

Lisk Development Team

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