Update: The latest stable version is EOSIO v1.8.1

As a contributor to the continued development and enhancement of the EOSIO™ software, we are pleased to announce a new stable release available for EOSIO. You can find more details about EOSIO v1.8.1 in the GitHub repository. Documentation on the EOSIO Developer Portal has been updated to reflect this release.

This release marks major enhancements for EOSIO paving the way for a more secure and scalable future for EOSIO based blockchains. A number of consensus protocol upgrade features have been introduced which require changes to the protocol rules and alignment by block producing nodes for the upgrade to be successfully deployed.

Additionally, the State History Plugin has also been promoted to a stable product that is ready for use in production environments.

Please note, we recommend all EOSIO Block Producers evaluate and deploy only after reviewing the recommendations provided in GitHub for the upgrade process.

This release introduces foundational mechanisms which are needed to facilitate the activation of the consensus protocol upgrade. These mechanisms will allow a two-thirds majority of active block producers of EOSIO blockchains to activate features individually to modify the protocol rules when completing the upgrade. All nodes will need to be locally configured to accept these upgrades, which can be as simple as installing a new version of the nodeos software. Each feature is for the most part designed to be à la carte, i.e. each feature can be activated independently of one another, however, some features may have dependencies on other features as noted in each issue on GitHub.

Before deploying the upgrade to any non-test networks, each protocol upgrade feature should be deployed and verified on test networks. This test upgrade process can give Block Producers of their respective EOSIO blockchain networks practice with carrying out the steps necessary to successfully coordinate the activation of the first feature, which will fork out any nodes that have not yet updated to the new version of nodeos by the time of activation. The process will also inform Block Producers of the requirements for nodes to upgrade nodeos to v1.8.x from v1.7.x and earlier, and it can help them decide on an appropriate deadline to be given as notice to stakeholders of the network for when the first feature will be activated.

An in-depth overview of the protocol upgrade features in this release and their implications to developers and users of EOSIO platforms is available in our initial post announcing the release candidate EOSIO v1.8.0-rc1. We strongly recommend a thorough review and evaluation before proceeding to update to this latest version.

Stay Connected

If you are interested in providing feedback and working more closely with our team to improve EOSIO for developers, you can send our developer relations team an email at developers@block.one.