In part five of our ‘ARK Core Series’, where we dive deeper into all of the upcoming changes to ARK Core v2.6, we shift our focus to ‘Delegate Resignation’. This often requested transaction type allows delegates to permanently resign from the network and remove their name from voting. Let’s take a look at how it works.

Delegate Resignation is a new transaction type being offered in ARK Core v2.6 that gives delegates the ability to resign and exclude themselves from the delegate rankings. Delegate Resignation is currently live for testing on ARK Devnet and will be added to the ARK Public Network (APN) with the ARK Core v2.6 update!

Why Do We Need Delegate Resignation?

It was Thomas Jefferson who once said:

“We do not have government by the majority. We have government by the majority who participate.”

By including the Delegate Resignation transaction type within ARK Core v2.6 we are leveraging ARK technology to give delegates a way to step down in the most efficient way possible. Prior to this update, resigning from a delegate position was an arduous and slow process. Delegates would have to inform their voters of their decision to discontinue services and wait to be voted out of their position.

Often times, due to the inactivity of some voters, this could take weeks and votes would not be updated until enough voters saw that a delegate wants to resign. This left the network vulnerable to missed blocks during the transition period if the Delegate wanted to stop their services prior to their votes being removed, and before their Delegate dropped out of the top 51 organically.

With this new update, we’ve made the transition incredibly simple and the same result can be achieved with the click of a few buttons. With an emphasis on participation within the ARK Ecosystem, the new ‘Delegate Resignation’ system encourages voters to be a more active participant in the network. Staying up to date with a Delegate’s contributions, updates, and future plans will be more important now than ever before.

Aside from the benefits to stability and the added choice for Delegates that ‘Delegate Resignation’ provides, one additional benefit is that the feature acts as a way to safeguard the network in the event that an active Delegate’s passphrase is compromised. If a delegate’s passphrase is leaked and then used by malicious actors, the delegate can send a Delegate Resignation transaction in order to mitigate any potential harm to the network.

How Does Delegate Resignation Work?

Delegate Resignation is a quick, simple, and effective way for a delegate to remove themselves from the Delegate rankings. There are two ways to do this: 1) By executing the transaction from the Desktop Wallet; or 2) By manually creating a Delegate Resignation transaction with the help of ARK’s Build Factory from our arkecosystem/crypto package.

How to do Delegate Resignation from the Desktop Wallet

Executing a Delegate Resignation transaction is simple. All you need to do is:

Open the ARK Desktop Wallet and select the vertical ellipsis icon next to the right of the send button. Select the dropdown menu under Registration and select “Resign Delegate” Enter your wallet’s passphrase (or password if you are using encrypted option) and confirm the transaction. Refresh your wallet and you will see that after the next round of forging, your delegate will be marked resigned and no longer counted in the Active Delegate Rankings (Top 51).

While this process is incredibly simple, there is a lot going on behind the scenes. When a delegate resignation transaction is sent from the wallet, a check will be conducted to see if the sender is a delegate and whether or not they are resigned or active. If the delegate is active, the transaction will be accepted and transmitted to the network. Once the transaction has been included in a block, the network will flag the delegate as resigned. Then, during the next round of forging, the resigned delegate is ignored when calculating delegate rankings.

It is important to note that once a delegate resigns, it cannot be undone. Therefore, delegates looking into resigning need to understand the permanency of this action.

We are incredibly excited about the release of ARK Core v2.6 and believe it is one of our most important releases to date. By putting more options into the hands of our users, Delegates, and developers, we are continuing to expand the capabilities of our platform and the ARK Ecosystem as a whole.

To find out more about the other features being introduced in ARK Core v2.6, don’t forget to read our previous posts covering the introduction of Schnorr’s Multisignatures, the Multisignature Server, Multipayments, and Hash Time-Locked Contracts.

Earn ARK For Testing & Reporting

Did you know you can help test Delegate Resignation and all of the other new features in ARK Core v2.6 right now on the ARK Devnet? Not only that, but you can also earn up to $100 in ARK for testing & reporting issues. These bounties not only apply to issues but also to suggestions that make improvements to the ARK Core. By reporting issues and digging into the code you might just end up on the ARK Leaderboard for an additional bounty worth up to $1000 in ARK!

Stay tuned to blog.ark.io for updates on all of the new features coming with ARK Core v2.6!

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