After four and a half months of fun and sometimes not so fun hard work, after touching what must have been every single line of the Burst code base – multiple times – we are proud to bring you BRS 2.0.0!

The foundation of it all

From our perspective, the biggest achievement here is that you may not see much difference to 1.3.6cg on first sight. “So what’s the deal?” you may ask.

This version is called BRS “Burst Reference Software”. It is the first instance of a fully emancipated Burst wallet/node software where the last Nxt heritage only lives in some few p2p data keywords we cannot change due to backward compatibility.

This software is our statement that we will no longer walk in the path that was once given by Nxt, continued by Ardor and followed for way too long by the descendant Burst.

The Burst Dymaxion will keep the Burst blockchain as the foundation of it all. This foundation must be original, strong and secure. Before building on it, we had to make sure we know what we are building upon and we also had to make sure it is built to carry the intended weight. The past two and a half months have been very edifying for all our developers, as we gained an unprecedented insight and understanding of the code base of Burst.

Why everybody should not update immediately

Pool operators should not yet update. The PoCC pools will run 1.3.6cg for at least a week. Let’s see how this new bird behaves in the wild, how it behaves when there are more and more of them. Go easy. If you are an early adopter by heart, not afraid to go for the manual install (and even manual rollback) – sure: do it.

If you use Qbundle, simply wait until an update becomes available to have your “1-click experience”. The more BRS 2.0.0 we see in the wild and the absence of problems will allow us to recommend more and more user groups to update. Should there be problems, we will provide 2.0.1, 2.0.2 etc. bugfix releases.

The first of its kind and the last of its kind

This software is a junction point. It is the last major version of the “old Burst”, the next major version – BRS 2.2.0 – will introduce a hard fork with several feature upgrades (PoC2, Tx capacity). When BRS 2.2.0 is going to be released (this will take shorter than 2.0.0 was in the making), then even this BRS 2.0.0 will be outdated. Which is the reason why the network must move onward: this wallet does not talk directly to old 1.2.X wallets anymore. Please, if you happen to run such an archaic wallet, do update. For now, the 1.3.6cg wallets are the last lifeline for 1.2.X wallets.

Make sure you learn how to update and be not afraid of it. Wallets are only tools to access your funds. Keep your secret keys safe (on paper) and no update hassle can endanger your coins: the blockchain is immutable.

Quite some updates are ahead. The upcoming BRS 2.2.X (first hard fork – on-chain upgrades) and BRS 2.4.X (second hard fork – Dymaxion prototypes) will be mandatory due to their nature. Stay informed!

To conclude, we would like to thank the Burst community for putting its trust in the PoC Consortium – we are more than ever dedicated to leading Burst to its rightful place. Thank you all for your patience and support. The future is exciting and we are looking forward to making it happen.

Sincerely,

The PoC Consortium members.