Update — Mainnet Launch Features

The 7 major features left to implement before version 0 of a mainnet release candidate software are:

1. Fees (Cosmos-SDK)

2. In-protocol slashing (Cosmos-SDK)

3. Multi-signatures (Tendermint)

4. ABCI (Application Blockchain Interface) changes (Tendermint)

5. Gas pricing (Cosmos-SDK)

6. Governance v2 (Cosmos-SDK)

Most of these features will be in the next release of the Cosmos-SDK v0.25.0 . After that release is launched and tested, the test environment will be feature-complete for Game of Steaks.

1 Fees

Issue #1921: We are implementing a simple flat, non-consensus minimum fee as an anti-spam measure.

Issue #1944: We’ve implemented a “Piggy bank” fee distribution mechanism which specifies how the protocol allocates fees to stakers.

Estimated Timeline — Work on fees should be completed in the Cosmos-SDK v0.25.0 release.

2 Slashing

In-protocol slashing is already implemented, but minor tweaks are still being made.

Issue #2163: Unbonding state for validators (WIP).

Issue #2122: Slashing period.

Issue #1256: Other slashing issues blocking for launch.

Estimated Timeline — Work on slashing should be completed in the Cosmos-SDK v0.25.0 release.

3 Multisig Support in the CLI

Multi-signature support has been implemented on the Tendermint Core side, but more work is needed to implement multi-sig in the GaiaCLI.

Estimated Timeline — TBD

4 ABCI Changes

Changes in the Tendermint ABCI need to be constantly maintained due to keeping up with corresponding breaking changes on the Cosmos-SDK. One of the improvements in the pipeline is better error logs for improved developer experience. These new updates should be included in the next release of Tendermint Core.

Estimated Timeline — ABCI changes should be included in Tendermint v0.24.0 release.

5 Gas Pricing

Gas pricing is a launch requirement, and currently, we’re benchmarking the IAVL to inform additional work to be done.

Estimated timeline — TBD

6 Gaia Lite

Gaia Light is the Cosmos-SDK light client implementation currently being developed for third-party integrations. We’re very aware that a large deciding factor for decentralized application developers when choosing which platforms to build on desire mature ecosystems with integrations — such as wallets — already built-in so that they don’t need to do the legwork of getting their applications supported themselves. Gaia Lite — when ready — addresses this need.

Issue #2177: Core developers at bianjie.ai (IRISnet) implemented Gaia Lite (referred to as ‘LCD’ in the PR) and we are currently in the process of splitting up the tasks and reviewing each component of the roughly ~5000 line light client implementation.

Gaia Lite is being updated to implement the Interchain Standard (ICS) specifications. ICS0, ICS1, ICS20, and ICS21 have been implemented already. ICS22 and ICS23 are currently under active development.

Estimated Timeline — Gaia Lite is needed for IBC functionality so it will be implemented, tested, secured, and audited before launch.

7 Governance (v2)

Governance v1 is done and currently stable. It only enables simple text proposals, but for v2, there remains an open issue about whether or not we want signaling for software upgrades. Governance v2 is the lowest on the priority list.

Issue #1079: Simple software upgrade proposals.

Issue #2116: Another governance proposal for software upgrades.

Estimated Timeline — TBD