Mainnet upgrade this December 13! Secret Network is doing another upgrade planned for this december 13 with the biggest change being the change to the Wasm3 Contract engine. This will bring a ~3.5x scalability upgrade for all smart contract interactions bringing the chain to a level that can sustain demand coming from all the new applications launching this month and early next month. As a consequence gas requirements for various actions are going down but the blocksize is staying the same. Here are some estimates for the gas changes:

Default instruction cost 1 -> 2
Div instruction cost 16 -> 2
Mul instruction cost 4 -> 2
Mem instruction cost 2 -> 2
Contract Entry cost 100,000 -> 20,000
Read from storage base cost 1,000 -> 10
Write to storage base cost 2,000 -> 20

Please test your contracts on the LocalSecret Testnet for V1.6 https://github.com/scrtlabs/LocalSecret/pkgs/container/localsecret/55127444?tag=v1.6.0-alpha.5 to see the impact on your contracts. The Pulsar-2 Testnet upgrade is planned for upcoming Monday 5 December.

The upgrade will also bring Key rotation to the network and make it possible for nodes to register on the network again with compliant hardware.

Secret was successfully upgraded with the Shockwave Omega update!

Update the Gas expectations
Please adjust the gas costs in your UIs so that they reflect the most recent decrease in prices. Especially Txs that call multiple contracts at once will get a lot cheaper.

SecretJS v1.5 is awesome, use it!
Secret JS v1.5 is Tons faster as it uses Grpc gateways and also has new tools included like cross IBC TX checking and more.

For an example of porting your code check: https://github.com/chainapsis/keplr-wallet/pull/597

The library is also available for REACT : https://www.npmjs.com/package/secretjs - Example Repo https://github.com/scrtlabs/react-native-secretjs

Happy Developing!

Secret is hiring for a technical writer and developer relations role.

If you are interested please apply here: https://secretjobs.niceboard.co/job/794012-technical-writer-devrel-secret-agency

If you have questions please DM @ Ertemann on Telegram

Dear Application/Ecosystem developers and teams,

Package/Deprecation REMINDERS

1. The last update has lowered the Gas costs for smart contract interactions significantly. If you havent yet please consider updating the GAS settings in your front-end so that the reduced costs are actionable for users on your UI

2. Secret JS v1.6 is available and is Tons faster as it uses Grpc-gateways (Over LCD). It also brings new tools for improved UX like cross IBC TX checking and more verbose TX error messages.

For an example of porting your code check: https://github.com/chainapsis/keplr-wallet/pull/597 or https://github.com/scrtlabs/wrap.scrt.network/commit/7a2c14a98ec4073c13f1b2d7995c9204a419b1b2

The library is also available for REACT : https://www.npmjs.com/package/secretjs - Example Repo https://github.com/scrtlabs/react-native-secretjs

Testnet and Mainnet upgrade Announcement

The Secret Network Pulsar-2 testnet will upgrade at Tuesday Jan 24th at 3PM UTC - A Mainnet date is still TBD but will be shortly after if testing is succesfull.

The upgrade will bring Seed Rotation to ensure better privacy protection. A localSecret version is available at: https://github.com/scrtlabs/LocalSecret/pkgs/container/localsecret/64153543?tag=v1.7.0-beta.2

- This upgrade WILL have breaking changes impacting Secret.JS!! For secret.js you will have to use: "1.7.1-beta.0"

Beyond that work continues to bring several features over the coming months including Bridge migration to Axelar, Gramine/DCAP (Intel Machine Upgrade), Iterators and Contract upgradeabillity.

Ending Notes:

A. The Secret2.0 Feedback period is ending with a signalling proposal coming to the chain very soon, if you are interested in the tokenomics and want to share your opinion please check out: https://discord.com/channels/360051864110235648/788435027356549220/1059507774729507036

*B. We have a role/channel on the Secret Network Discord (chat.scrt.network) called "Leaders", and every Monday at 3pm UTC we hold a meeting on there where we discuss Secret Network news and priorities. If you dont have access yet please ping @Ertemann or @cryptocurnc and join to stay up to date.

C. If you are looking for talent to improve your team, consider posting your jobs on: https://secretjobs.niceboard.co/

D. If you are looking for Enterprise API infrastructure - Secret is now Supported by ANKR: https://twitter.com/SecretNetwork/status/1615725547014717440
The community has also provided an API, for information on how to use these public endpoints visit: https://docs.scrt.network/secret-network-documentation/development/connecting-to-the-network


We hope this information helps, if there are any questions please dont hesitate to reach out. More details regarding the update schedule and the Changelog will follow.

Hey Developers.

The Pulsar-2 testnet will be retrying the failed update of last week to V1.7 in about 15-minutes. https://github.com/scrtlabs/SecretNetwork/releases/tag/v1.7.0-rc.2

The network will hopefully be down only for a little while after which RPC nodes and other services should be coming back online.

If there are complications we will inform you.

Please be reminded that the only stable releases of Secret.JS post upgrade are:
v1.5.x, v1.6.x -> v1.7.1-beta.2 (Recommended)
v1.4.x -> v1.4.6
v0.17.8 - can still be used

We also announce these updates in the Dev-updates channel in discord (chat.scrt.network)

The Testnet is back up and running, the consensus seed has rotated successfully.

A time for the mainnet upgrade will be set soon.

Hey 👋
Archive nodes are back https://github.com/scrtlabs/SecretNetwork/releases/tag/v1.2.0-archive
(updated docs) https://docs.scrt.network/secret-network-documentation/node-runners/archive-nodes

Quoting the docs:
You will need to use the designated archive-node binaries (https://github.com/scrtlabs/SecretNetwork/releases/tag/v1.2.0-archive) when available. For the rest of the upgrades, use the binaries for the respective version from the releases page (https://github.com/scrtlabs/SecretNetwork/releases).

Secret Network 1.7 Release Notes

Target Date - 01/03/2023 (1st of March)

New Features

- Added the ability to rotate consensus seed during a network upgrade - this will be executed during this update
- Added expedited gov proposals - this allows for special proposals that can be voted on in 24 hours for emergencies
- Added auto-restaking - this is a feature that enables automatic compounding of staking rewards
- Added light-client validation for blocks - this protects against forking attacks, as well as enables trusted block heights and block time to be relied on by contracts

Bug Fixes

- Fixed OSX Ledger disconnection issues in secretcli
- Fixed /cosmos/base/node/v1beta1/config
- Fixed an issue when sending multiple message types in the same tx
- Fixed an issue with the IBC controller module

Breaking Changes

Mandatory secret.js update (non-API breaking)

The tx encryption key format has changed, requiring an update of secret.js. After the upgrade goes live, secret.js will require an update to one of the following versions to continue to function:

v1.5.x, v1.6.x -> v1.7.x
v1.4.x -> v1.4.6
v0.17.8 - can still be used

This update should be a simple version bump that will not change any existing APIs, and will not break functionality.
In order to test this version, secret.js 1.7.1-beta3 is available for testing on Pulsar-2, which is already on the 1.7 update.

Side note: This update will not affect Keplr

Other

- Ubuntu 18.04 is no longer supported in this version. Please update to Ubuntu 20.04 or 22.04 for continued support
- To ensure a smooth upgrade process, please verify that all nodes are running on patched and updated hardware prior to the upgrade. To do so, please use the check-hw tool found here: https://github.com/scrtlabs/SecretNetwork/releases/tag/v1.6.1

Testnet was halted/down for ~12 hours overnight due to a massive block that crashed almost all nodes.

Restart worked and Pulsar-2 is back up but will take some time before all services included API and explorer are back up again.

Some more context:
https://vxtwitter.com/assafmo/status/1639942236791095297

Sorry for the inconvenience, you can get testing again soon 😁

-- This message goes out to all Secret dApps and developer announcer channels --

Mainnet and Testnet upgrade - IBC v4 + SecretVRF

Timeline
Code freeze -- 02/05/2023
Testnet upgrade to V1.9 -- 02/05/2023
Mainnet upgrade to v1.9 -- 16/05/2023

Summary:
This upgrade will bring native private randomness to the Secret Network. The verifiable random function has a random item for every block which negated multiple attacks previously possible with contract based randomness. The VRF function is free to use and can be used cross-IBC in for example lotteries, gaming, secure authentication and more. Additionally a "FinalizeTX" call is added which allows contracts to force TXs to finalize at a certain point. This negated rollbacks, sandwhich attacks which apply for ex to Game of chance outcomes.

Documentation for this feature: https://docs.scrt.network/secret-network-documentation/development/development-concepts/secret-vrf-on-chain-randomness

Additionally the upgrade brings an array of additional IBC solutions including the Packet-forward-middleware (thank you Strangelove!), IBC fee middleware, IBC-go V4 (interchain account host module and other features) and an IBC panic button to freeze transfers in case of emergency. The packet-forward-middleware will allow easier routing of Tokens from, to and through secret improving the UX for users and simplify front-end design for IBC applications (EX: https://twitter.com/assafmo/status/1646472957106028544).

The IBC fee middleware will allow relayers to start prioritising IBC transactions based on an additional fee set for relayers, this brings back fees to relayers which is now merely a common good. IBC-go v4 brings ICA host-modules allowing DAOs, defi vaults and more to host accounts from a secret Contracts on another Cosmos chain and interact with contracts there. Lastly the IBC-panic button is a start in securing IBC for secret further as we rely on it more and more. Exact implementation details will come in a forum post coming week.

Changelog: https://github.com/scrtlabs/SecretNetwork/blob/master/CHANGELOG.md

implementation details
This upgrade will not have breaking changes to Secret.js or other packages, both testnet and mainnet dApps should see little impact on their service.

It is however advised to start with altering front-ends to allow for IBC fees and Middleware and Alter applications with required randomness to use the renewed SecretVRF function.

For ICA account implementations documentation is still lacking, please refer to these awesome examples by Quasar finance to learn more: https://github.com/quasar-finance/interchain-accounts-demo . if as a dApp you require these specific IBC channels on main or testnet then please reach out to @Ertemann!

-- End of update --

For additional questions please reach out to @ertemann or @cryptocurnc

Hey Developers

Sorry for the late notice but please be aware that Pulsar-2 will be upgraded in ~1 hour to the same version as the current mainnet. This upgrade includes the patches made during the 1.9 upgrade process on mainnet that took over 12 hours to complete and will bring Pulsar-2 back to the same binary as mainnet.

Additionally I would like to mention that SCRT labs and the Testnet committee are looking into Deprecating Pulsar-2 in favour of Pulsar-3. Pulsar-3 will be a more close copy of the current mainnet including the various modules so that errors in upgrades can actually be caught by pushing them to testnet first (unlike the breaking bugs that happened during the V1.9 upgrade).

A final timeline for Pulsar-3 has not yet been set as we are gathering feedback from dApps on the best launch date and Pulsar-2 deprecation.

If you have any feedback on the upcoming Pulsar-3 testing suite please contact me or @Taariq

Dear dApp developer,

This announcement covers the upcoming feature contract upgradeabillity and the upcoming testnet change pulsar-3.

1. Pulsar-3
After much consideration SCRT Labs deems pulsar-2 insufficient to properly test upgrades due to the many differences it has with the Secret-4 mainnet. These differences were one of the causes for the hardships during the last upgrade and preventing this into the future is of paramount importance.

Because of this SCRT Labs proposes to sunset pulsar-2 in favour of a new testnet pulsar-3. Preferably this around the beginning giving us 1 month to collect timelines and feedback from dApp developers.

What we want from you:
Please let us know your timelines for testing on pulsar-2 and if there are important testing dates that can not be moved or altered. We plan to only deprecate pulsar-2 and migrate fully when teams are ready to migrate as well.

The new testnet will be supported by the same committee providing API endpoints and maintenance. If you have more questions about this upcoming change please let us know.

2. Contract upgradeability

As explained in https://forum.scrt.network/t/feedback-for-contract-upgradeability-design/6643/29 Secret contracts will become upgradeable soon (v1.10 or v1.11 probably) - this is only for new contracts. We however want to provide the same functionality for older contracts with the method described in the forums.

If you want your old contracts to become upgradeable please file this form: https://forms.monday.com/forms/6ef9177487f3bee0e1680e3df6c018f2?r=use1

If you have any questions or want to deliver a complete/long list of contracts instead then let me know.

Please be reminded that this will be a one time thing, old contracts can only become upgradeable during this upgrade.

Best regards
Secret network development team