Hello ionomy Community,

The ION Core Team has executed a hard fork to ION’s core code, bringing ION 3.0 to life. Follow the links to the guides to upgrade your wallets and reconfigure masternodes. Since this is a hard fork, wallet updates are mandatory. A few changes require your attention, so please read the documentation before upgrading.

Wallets and guides

Download the new QT wallet here: https://github.com/ioncoincore/ion/releases
You can find setup instructions on our wiki at: https://github.com/ionomy/ion/wiki

ionomy.com upgrades to 3.0

Holding your ION on ionomy.com? You don’t have to do a thing. The ionomy team takes care of all updates for ionomy’s online ION wallet, stakers, and hosted masternodes.

The ionomy.com ION wallet and masternodes are currently under maintenance. ionomy will announce when they go live. Until then, please do not send ION to ionomy.com.

New features require new security practices

ION 3.0 introduces leading-edge technology for transactional privacy. In order for the network to achieve this new privacy capacity, private coins (called xION or zerocoin ION) are “minted” from traditional ION through a process that occurs in the wallet by default.

Security implications

When new private xION coins are minted, the new privacy coins are recorded in your wallet.dat. The wallet.dat file automatically creates a new backup with every transaction. In the past, crypto wallet users have protected their coins in two different ways:

-Many serious cryptocurrency users are accustomed to protecting their coins by saving their private keys in a secure location.
-Others focus on securely backing up their wallets.

With zerocoin technology, backing up your private keys is not enough because zerocoin ION (xION) is stored in the wallet.dat and not in exportable private keys. Securely storing your private keys is still a great way to protect your access to traditional ION. But the private key to a traditional ION address will not allow you to recover access to your Zerocoin ION (xION) if you lose access to your wallet. To keep both your traditional ION and your xION safe:

Backup your wallet.dat.

To mint or not to mint: You get to decide. It is possible to change the defaults on your wallet so that none of your traditional ION gets converted to xION. On the Qt, under ION Core menu, select Preferences > Main, then deselect “Enable xION automint.” To change the configuration in the daemon, see the guide for details.

ION 3.0 Masternodes changes

In ION 3.0, masternodes require a slightly different setup. The main change is that masternodes must now reside on a remote server and be started from a local server. While this system does require the use of two wallets, the local/remote approach has some advantages. First, the local wallet can be the Qt wallet (desktop wallet) which features user-friendly improvements making it much easier to edit the masternode.conf and the ioncoin.conf from the wallet itself. The local wallet only needs to be on when issuing the command to start masternodes. Second, since the remote masternodes do not hold any coins, your valuable coins are not vulnerable to theft, even if someone were to attack the remote node. No coins are stored on the remote node. Finally, since the local wallet can be turned off as soon as the masternodes are launched, it is possible to protect your coins from network-based attacks.

For any ION wallet that holds (or ever held) coins, password-protect your wallet and any backups of your wallet.

A few nice wallet features

The ION 3.0 Qt wallet is packed with tools that make complex tasks as easy as clicking a button. The improved design lets users easily modify configuration files, monitor and manage masternodes, and track details on transactions through the integrated block explorer. Poke around in Settings and the Tools tab to discover more including multisig management and wallet backup features.

Pressure Drop

ION is only about a week away from a major block reduction. Smaller rewards mean lower inflation. The ION blockchain will generate only half the ION generated in the first year.

The Big 3.0

Just as ION and ionomy enter their third year in operation, ION 3.0 comes to life. Download your wallets, get staking, and set up your masternodes. It’s gonna be a big year.

Welcome to a new era!

The ionomy Team

Reposted from the official email news from Ionomy team.
Go #ionomy @bluudz