After 12 days of voting, we are proud to share that over 600 million IOTX (~24% of the circulating supply) have been staked/voted to secure the IoTeX network - an amazing accomplishment! If you haven’t already, make sure to vote at member.iotex.io.
Voting for IoTeX Delegates — Official Kickoff!
Over the past few weeks, our 50+ Delegates have been exploring and mining on the IoTeX Testnet — now it’s time to take it to the next level. We are excited to announce that Mainnet Rehearsal officially begins on Wed, March 27!
What is Mainnet Rehearsal?
Consensus in the IoTeX network is managed exclusively by Delegates — it is a critical role, as the network is only as strong as the weakest node . To make sure Delegates are 100% ready, we will run a Mainnet Rehearsal (private beta) for ~2 weeks, after which the Mainnet will be launched to the public (official date coming soon).
Mainnet Rehearsal is required for all Delegates and consists of attending various workshops (i.e., infrastructure, monitoring, rewards) and practicing real world Delegate scenarios :
- Network bootstrap : start blockchain + consensus process from scratch
- First aid : pause / resume blockchain without affecting block production
- Hotfix (compatible) : install new software without pausing consensus (e.g., bug fixes, new features)
- Hotfix (non-compatible) : network-wide pause to install new software (e.g., serious issues that should not happen regularly)
- Rollback & recovery : reverse a set of blocks and allow blockchain to recover (e.g., critical issues and bugs, should not happen)
What are the actual responsibilities of Delegates?
Delegates will install the iotex-core protocol on their servers, which automatically proposes and validates blocks. As such, the primary role of a Delegate is to run the latest iotex-core software (there will be frequent updates) and always keep their node/server online . Delegates will need to be on-call to install both urgent and non-urgent software updates, as well as properly configure their hardware to maintain node uptime.
Consensus in the IoTeX network is a team effort. Mainnet Rehearsal will be the formal orientation for Delegates to meet each other, configure their nodes, and practice real world consensus scenarios.
What’s Next?
The next few weeks leading up to Mainnet launch will be action-packed. We will need the commitment of ALL Delegates and the community to make our Mainnet launch successful. After successfully running Mainnet Rehearsal for ~2 weeks and meeting performance/security benchmarks, the IoTeX Mainnet will be launched to the public!
In addition to Mainnet launch, we have other exciting announcements coming soon. We can’t wait to share what we have been working on behind-the-scenes — stay tuned to our official channels to stay in the loop! Let’s build the future together.