Introduction

The Spectrecoin Foundation is thrilled to present the production version of Spectrecoin v3.x with our novel ‘Proof-of-Anonymous-Stake’ (PoAS) protocol and other privacy and security upgrades. This release has been nearly 10 months in development and testing and introduces the first fully anonymous staking system on a trustless setup. There are still 3 weeks to go before the planned hard fork on 17/05/2019 @ 2000 hours (GMT), but this is a MANDATORY upgrade and you will need to get the v3.x wallet up and running ahead of the hard-fork to be able to use PoAS and continue to stake. Please follow the below guide if you are unsure about what to do and what to expect.

‘Stealth Staking’ will NOT work until after the hard-fork!

If you are new to Spectrecoin, it might be a good idea to read back over some old newsletters for some more in depth information on PoAS and other changes. A new and updated white paper will also be released ahead of the hard-fork on 17/05/2019.

BACKUP wallet.dat

Before you start this upgrade process, It is vitally important that you backup your ‘wallet.dat‘ file / private keys. This file (wallet.dat) holds your coins and in case of some upgrade failure or other incident you will be able to recover your coins. As the upgrade to v3.x involves a full reindex of the blockchain, we recommend that you backup the whole ‘data directory‘ in case you get any unforeseen sync issues. This would enable you to go back without having to download the whole blockchain again. We have provided a step-by-step backup guide below for the different platforms. If you are confident about what you are doing you can just skip to the ‘Download’ or ‘Bootstrap’ sections.

If you are not confident about creating copies / backups of files and in general feel uneasy about this aspects of things, I strongly recommend that you familiarise yourself with basic file operations before upgrading.

Personally I would recommend a backup strategy for all crypto wallets with at least 2 local copies and at least one ‘off-site‘ copy. That way you are covered in most circumstances. If you have 3 or more copies of the ‘wallet.dat‘ file it’s highly unlikely that they will all fail at the same time. Obviously, when I say 2 local copies I mean on two physically different media in your house, your working copy of ‘wallet.dat‘ is held in your main computer and you have two other copies on an external hard drive, USB stick or something similar. It’s no good having a backup on the same machine if it fails. Always ENCRYPT your wallet.dat file with a strong password!!

Windows 10 (backup)

In Windows 10 the Spectrecoin data directory is at the following path:

C:\Users\YOUR-USERNAME\AppData\Roaming

Type %appdata% into the search box, to bring up the below window

Click on the link as shown to open a ‘File Explorer’ window of your %AppData% folder

Open the ‘Roaming’ folder and you will see all the app directories

Find the ‘SpectreCoin’ directory that contains all the data

Mac OSX (backup)

On Mac OSX the Spectrecoin data directory is at the following path:

~/Users/YOUR-USERNAME/Library/Application Support/SpectreCoin

As the OSX ‘Finder‘ app will hide the ‘~/Library‘ and the ‘/Application Support‘ folder by default, you can either reveal the hidden folders once using the key combination Cmd (⌘) + Shift (⇧) + . (dot) from within a finder window and navigate to the data folder or you can show hidden filed permanently. Please see the link below if you are not used to dealing with Mac hidden files.

https://www.macworld.co.uk/how-to/mac-software/hidden-files-mac-3520878/

In the ‘Finder‘ app open the ‘Macintosh HD‘ folder

Then open the ‘Users‘ folder and open the folder with your username, which is your home folder

You will see your username on top and you know you’re in your ‘home folder‘

Then show hidden files: Cmd (⌘) + Shift (⇧) + . (dot)

Then find the ‘greyed out‘ ‘Library‘ folder and open it

Then find and open the ‘SpectreCoin‘ folder and make a backup of the whole folder

You can also use third party tools for Mac, like the excellent Path Finder file explorer that makes it really easy to manage files in tabs. (https://cocoatech.com/#/)

Raspberry Pi / Linux (backup)

On Raspberry Pi and on Linux the Spectrecoin data directory is at the following path:

Raspberry Pi: '/home/pi/.spectrecoin'

Linux: '/root/.spectrecoin'

DOWNLOAD THE BINARIES

After you are 100% confident that you have a complete backup, you should download the v3.x binaries for your operating system from the Spectrecoin GitHub repo, link as below:

https://github.com/spectrecoin/spectre/releases/tag/3.0.9

Once you have downloaded the binaries for your operating system, either overwrite the old version of the Spectrecoin binaries or delete the old binaries and copy the new ones to the app directory. Make sure close your wallet software before you delete or overwrite with the new binaries.

You now have two options, you can just start the new v3.x version of Spectrecoin and the wallet will start to reindex the blockchain automatically. This could take anything from a few hours to more than 24 hours. This is depending on the speed or your computer and other factors. The reindexing will only have to be done once however for the v3.x wallet. Whilst the blockchain is reindexing you will see this splash screen with a block-count as shown below for Windows 10 and Mac OSX.

When you start the Raspberry Pi version of Spectrecoin after updating to v3.x you will see the ‘debug.log‘ file updating. As there is currently no ‘blue tick’ in the Raspberry Pi version to indicate a full sync status, you will need to wait until the ‘height=‘ which is the block number (shown in red) is equal to the last block shown in the block explorer (shown in red below).

Raspberry Pi ‘debug.log‘ after successful upgrade

Please see the WIKI and also the below link for updating the Raspberry Pi UI.

https://github.com/spectrecoin/documentation/wiki/UpdatePre3.xRaspbian

If you are looking to speed this up, follow the instructions below for how to use the latest v3.x bootstrap for Spectrecoin.

BOOTSTRAP INSTALLATION

The bootstrap is a copy of the blockchain and you can download, unzip and copy the blockchain to your data directory after deleting the old blockchain files, but whilst leaving your ‘wallet.dat‘ file and your ‘spectrecoin.conf‘ files in situ. Make sure your wallet is shut down. Let’s go through the steps:

(1) Download the v3.x blockchain files

Go to: https://github.com/spectrecoin/spectre/releases/tag/3.0.9 for the latest proper release and find the file called ‘Spectrecoin-Blockchain-v3-2019-04-28.zip‘ that corresponds to the latest release.

for the latest proper release and find the file called ‘Spectrecoin-Blockchain-v3-2019-04-28.zip‘ that corresponds to the latest release.

(2) Delete the old blockchain files (backup first!)

Delete old blockchain files (Mac OSX shown as an example)



(3) Copy the new v3.x block chain files to the data directory

When you unzip ‘Spectrecoin-Blockchain-v3-2019-04-28.zip‘ you will see:

Copy the below files / directories to your Spectrecoin data directory:

blk0001.dat – The main blockchain data file

txleveldb/* – The files of the transaction database

When you have copied the above files to your data directory, you should only have the following files in your data directory before you start the v3.x wallet software:

This is what your data directory should look like before you start v3.x

https://github.com/spectrecoin/spectrecoin-blockchain-bootstrap/blob/master/README.md

Once you have copied the v3.x blockchain filed to the data directory, start your wallet again and wait for the blockchain to sync, this should be significantly faster than a full reindex.

FAQs

What is a ‘MANDATORY‘ upgrade?

On the 17th May 2019 new consensus rules will get activated on the Spectrecoin blockchain. This is part of the v3.x release. If you do not upgrade your wallet you will no longer be part of the Spectrecoin network and blockchain and any stake reward you get will be on an alternative unsupported chain with the old consensus rules. That also means that you will not be able to either deposit or withdraw Spectrecoin from any exchanges.

What are the ‘binaries‘?

Strictly speaking a ‘binary‘ file is a non-text file, but in the context of Spectrecoin the ‘binaries‘ we are talking about are the executable files, i.e. the compiled, ready to run wallet software, such as the ‘spectrecoin.exe‘ (Windows) or the ‘Spectrecoin‘ executable for OSX / Linux.



Can I trust the ‘Bootstrap‘ and the ‘binaries‘ you provide?

We have provided a ready reindexed v3.x blockchain, which is almost up to date for your convenience and to reduce sync times. All of the official releases, binaries and the bootstrap comes with a sha256 checksum published with the release. That means you can check that the file you download is the same as the one we publish on GitHub and that the file has not been modified somehow, i.e. you can check that the file really is from the official Spectrecoin GitHub. You will find information on that under the release.

What if I missed this announcement and keep staking like usual?

If you keep staking past 17/05/2019 using a V2.x wallet, it is likely that the blockchain you are on will stall and you will not receive any stakes. The seed nodes run by The Spectrecoin Foundation will all be running v3.x so may not be able to sync your wallet. If you should receive any stakes, they are not valid on the v3.x chain and you will not be able to deposit or withdraw from any exchanges. There is no reason whatsoever for not updating to v3.x.

How long will it take to reindex the blockchain?

This depends on different factors and to a large extent it depends on the speed of your computer. It can take anything from 2-3 hours to more than 24 hours. You can speed this up by downloading the ‘bootstrap’ before you start the v3.x wallet.

Any more questions? please ask the team in our Discord

LINKS