Today’s the fourth Thursday of January, which means that it’s time for the monthly Project Update! Although there isn’t a ton of new stuff to report, partly due to a well-deserved break the developers took during the holidays, good progress has been made on several fronts.
Let’s get down to the details of it!
New Particl Core Releases
As mentioned recently, Particl Core developer Tecnovert has been ramping up development in various areas, notably in keeping Particl Core up-to-date with Bitcoin’s codebase. As we walk through 2021, you can expect core elements and updates to be more frequent than they have been in the past year or so.
To that end, two new core releases were published as pre-releases this month; Particl Core 0.19.2.3 and Particl Core 0.21.0.1.
Today, on the 28th of January, 2021, Particl Core 0.19.2.3 has been fully released and has exited its pre-release phase.
Particl Core 0.19.2.3
The new Particl Core 0.19.2.3 full release is mostly composed of minor bug fixes and improvements. It also re-introduces 32bit builds for Windows, which has now been abandoned by Bitcoin, making Particl accessible to an even wider range of users across the globe. This lets users with less powerful or more dated computers access Particl Core and Particl Marketplace in less technically equipped environments. The full changelog is as follows:
- Merged Bitcoin 0.19.2 backports.
- New PoW checkpoints.
- Fix
smsginboxhex encoding bug. - Tighten
IsStandard()check to fail on trailing script. - Re-enable win32 gitian build.
Particl Core 0.21.0.1
The Particl Core 0.21.0.1 is a much bigger release compared to the 0.19.2.3 one. It’s the first significant core update since the 4th of December, 2019, and it includes a vast number of improvements derived from Bitcoin Core 0.20 and 0.21. Here are some of the most noteworthy.
- New RPC call to easily create and share a secure blockchain snapshot that allows you to start using the blockchain while it hasn’t fully synced yet.
- Asmap functionality for more reliable and decentralized network connectivity.
- Tor V3 support for better network privacy. Tor will deprecate V2 addresses in the next year or two, making this a critical update to Particl Core.
- Schnorr signatures and Taproot readiness for more privacy and scalability. This has yet to be activated, however, but Particl Core is now ready for it.
- No default wallet created when launching Particl Core for the first time.
- “Compact client-side block filtering” for more privacy-friendly light wallets.
- Various issue and bug fixes as well as general improvements that operate more in the background
Particl Core 0.21.0.1 is published as a pre-release, meaning it still requires a more extensive period of testing across different environments before being deployed as a full release. As has been the tradition with Particl, this is to ensure the stability and security of this new release. Once it gets fully released, Particl Core 0.21.0.1 will then supercede Particl Core 0.19.2.3.
If you find any issue with Particl Core 0.21.0.1, please report them directly to Particl’s particl-core Github issue page.
Particl V3
Particl V3, which includes the new Particl Desktop client and the improved marketplace codebase, has progressed well. Here are the current two areas that are still being worked on.
- Fixing minor bugs and issues identified by the community during the testing round for the first testnet build.
- Fixing a more extensive problem related to Windows builds prevents some users from launching the application normally.
Although the minor bugs and issues are expected to be fixed quickly, the Windows issue is a more complicated one, requiring much more effort. A new testnet build of Particl V3 will likely be released very shortly, but it may not yet include the fix for the Windows issue.
This would give the opportunity to the community to, once again, test out the build and make sure no new issue has appeared as a result of the various fixes that are being implemented. And then, once the Windows issue is fixed, a new testnet build will be immediately published. If no new problem arises after this point, Particl V3 will then be ready to immediately initiate its move towards mainnet.
Particl Academy
The Particl Academy is nearing completion and is still scheduled for release before the Particl V3 mainnet. Take note that, following Particl’s ethos, the entire Particl Academy platform will be open-sourced on Github. That’ll allow anyone in the community to contribute with content, propose changes, or improve any aspect.
CCS System
There are two important topics worth mentioning regarding the CCS proposal system.
First off, a major proposal was pushed roughly one month ago and has raised approximately 65% of its target with 29 participants contributing! It suggests seeding the marketplace with thousands of real items that will be able to be anonymously purchased. The entire buying process for these items will be automated, meaning a swift and smooth user experience.
To support this initiative, please feel free to donate to the proposal by following this link.
Secondly, the Particl team has started preparing, code-wise and logistically, to integrate the new on-chain voting module into the CCS system. This will let community members push proposals that may require a consensus to be reached. Such proposals can include protocol changes, Community Fund movement, etc.
More details will be provided shortly about the consensus requirements (what is needed for a proposal to be deemed as “having reached consensus”) as well as the on-chain voting system in general and its expected time of arrival.
Particl.News Translations
A while ago, valuable Particl community members started translating key blog posts. However, due to the limitative nature of Medium, they couldn’t be properly displayed on Particl.News. This has now changed with Particl’s blog migration from Medium to Ghost.
Translated articles are now being published on Particl News! These translated articles do not show up, by default, on the blog’s main page but can be easily accessed by clicking the right language flag at the top right corner of the screen.
As translations are a big part of making Particl accessible to the global community, we’d like to thank all these contributors for their hard work in translating these articles. They are WhiteFlag (Spanish), Laurogripa (Portuguese), Mbacoinin and Stock999 (Russian), and Anonymouser (Philippines)!
If you would like to contribute to Particl and help out translating content into your native language, please reach out on Particl’s Discord server or Telegram channels. We’ll be happy to see with you what content is the most important to translate and publish your work on Particl News.
Particl Needs YOU!
As we now find ourselves on the verge of going live with the second testing round of Particl v3, Particl needs your help! So get your machines ready so that we can all blast through this new testing round ensuring a fast, but secure, migration towards mainnet.
In the meantime, you can be of crucial help by testing out the new Particl Core 0.21.0.1 release. Testing it across many different environments (operating systems, hardware setups, etc) helps picking up potential issues more effectively and moving forward more effectively.
As always, the entire Particl team would like to warmly thank you for your continued support through the years so far. Let's, together, make 2021 a great year for Particl and the world of decentralized e-commerce in general!
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