Development update on Verge #14

All over the planet, people have a tradition of making a new year’s wish. On Verge Island we decided to make one come true. This development update has a special announcement for our amazing community and to the haters that still follow us (you know who you are)

Codebase Alpha Release:

We are proud to present, what we’ve worked so hard to create, The Codebase! (still in alpha). At this very moment you can click here: https://github.com/vergecurrency/VERGE and access our repository to find the Verge 5.0 Codebase, alpha release.

Wow Manuel, finally! We’ve been waiting for this. But… Manuel, what does this mean? What does the new codebase version bring?

If you remember, we already talked about this few updates ago, but since I’m a nice guy, I’ll remind you in some points what the new codebase allows us:

Substantial blockchain performance improvements
Overall changed set of RPC commands (based on Bitcoins standard)
Greatly enhanced chain security
Greatly improved CPU & Memory performance
Block indexing time reduced by 89%

Ok Manuel, but tell me something, what about SegWit and Lightning Network?

We aren’t implementing those features; since we have blocks created every 30 seconds and first confirmation usually occurs after 5–10 seconds we don’t need them at the time I’m writing.

Manuel, I went through the new repository already, there’s no sign of Ring Confidential Transactions. When is this coming?

We will work on that after the stable release of the codebase. Indeed, we want to publish a robust software before diving in. And as I see you coming with your next question, we’ll also start working on RSK implementation. As we learnt the hard way, we aren’t going to establish deadlines on those features, but we’ll certainly keep you up to date with this.

At this very moment we have:

Working base core for our blockchain
Communication between new and old nodes
Tor integration

What needs to be completed:

Stealth addressing, which isn’t completely implemented
Various smaller fixes

Important Note About This Release

This release is meant for developers that are interested in our project. If the codebase update interests you, star it, fork it, test it and love it! We’re looking to find developers willing to:

Test vulnerabilities
Pre-testing for platforms integration
Bug fixes / bug reports.

iOS Wallet Update

Since last Friday (January 4, 2019) you may have had access to the Verge Currency iOS wallet public beta. You are one of the 200 lucky ones with access. Congratulations! Others will have to wait for the full release. Many of the beta testers have been testing the application thoroughly and found bugs and problems. Most of those found bugs had been fixed last Thursday (January 10, 2019) when we release beta 2 for the iOS wallet public beta application.
Next Steps

There are at least two things that need to be tackled before the application is released in the Apple App Store:

Finish the development for a version 1.0
Convert our Personal Apple Developer account to an Organization Apple Developer account.
Approval by Apple.

The last one is not in our hands and of course relies on Apple.

The second one is a matter of getting it done.

The first one is entirely in our own hands and will have the following stages:

More beta releases.
Release candidates.
Gold master. (This will be the same version as the App Store version)

More betas are needed to make the application work seamlessly on all devices for everyone. Of course, there is no fixed number of betas and release candidates. These versions will be made if needed.
From Beta to App Store Version

The beta version will be overwritten once you download the App Store version. So, when the day comes, you don’t have to worry about your wallet. When you never want to worry about your wallet you should save your private key in a save place where you can always find it. Your private key is the paper key (mnemonic) and the pass phrase you’ve chosen when creating the wallet.

BlackPaper Version 5.0

We’re excited to bring you a long over-due update to our BlackPaper. Yesterday, January 17th, 2019, CryptoRekt released version 5.0 of the paper which contains a ton of new content and updated definitions for the technology that is included on the Verge blockchain. Be sure to check it out if you haven’t done so already here: https://vergecurrency.com/static/blackpaper/verge-blackpaper-v5.0.pdf

If you enjoyed reading the paper or you learned something new and would like to leave feedback for CR, make sure to comment on his twitter status here: https://twitter.com/CryptoRekt/status/1086047296301625344

Ending Line

We’re very excited about all developments that are happening amongst the team and as such we hope that you are as excited as we are for the upcoming codebase updates!