In an official publication, the Stellar Development Foundation (SDF) revealed plans to postpone the network upgrade to a later date after the developers discovered a bug. Initially, the Stellar community planned to integrate the Ethereum smart contract into its blockchain network on January 30.
With the ongoing developments on the blockchain network, the developers discovered a bug in Stellar’s Core v20.1.0.
Significance of Stellar Protocol 20 Upgrade
After careful consideration, the Stellar technical team noted that the bug could directly affect the operation of the application and services offered by its new Soroban blockchain project.
The project was unveiled last year to give the Stellar network a facelift. Primarily, the Protocol 20 upgrade will involve integrating additional smart contracts to allow the developers to build their applications seamlessly.
The developers anticipate the completion of the upgrade will become the most significant upgrade in the history of Stellar. In an earlier interview, the Soroban project leader Tomer Weller envisioned the growth of decentralized finance (DeFi) in the coming days.
The executive confessed that to support the growth of the DeFi ecosystem, it was important for the Stellar network to undergo an upgrade. Weller believed that the Protocol 20 upgrade could increase the activity on the Stellar network.
Development on Stellar Network
Stellar ranks among the oldest blockchain networks created in 2014, when crypto was still a new concept. However, with the ongoing development in the crypto industry, the Stellar network seeks to build an innovative smart contract blockchain for developers.
This forced the Stellar team to launch the Soroban projects last year. After a lengthy process of building the Soroban, the project team anticipated completing the upgrade on January 30. However, the plans to launch Protocol 20 upgrade seem impossible due to a bug in the network.
In a January 25 blog post, the developers agreed to prioritize fixing the bug. Based on the nature of the bug, the Stellar technical team anticipates that the expected upgrade will be ready in two weeks.
Before the expected upgrade, the Stellar team took preventive measures to safeguard the blockchain network from further damage. In the report, developers confirmed that the bug posed “little risk” that would hinder the rollout plan.
The discovery of the bug compelled the developers to consult the SDF community concerning the expected Stellar upgrade. Based on the robust responses from the SDF community, the team behind the Soroban project agreed to disarm the Stellar validators and stop the proposed January 30 community voting.
SDF Postponing Protocol 20 Upgrade
In an email statement dated January 28, the SDF spokesperson stated that six out of seven tier-1 validators agreed to disarm the validators, including SDF Satoshipay, Whalestck, Lobstr, Blockdeamon and Public Node. The spokesperson anticipates other validators will provide feedback concerning the expected Stellar upgrade.
He added that the Protocol 20 upgrade will be postponed even if the other validators vote for the upgrade. The spokesperson anticipates the SDF will communicate the official date for the Protocol 20 upgrade.
In the meantime, the SDF will fix the bug while holding internal discussions concerning the upgrade. The SDF restated that the ongoing voting for the upgrade required a quorum to allow the foundation to decide whether the Protocol 20 upgrade should proceed.
A review of the Stellar website demonstrated that around 43 validator nodes are available on the network. In a subsequent report, the SDF team claimed that the bug occurs when a transaction request is made on the Soroban protocol.
The report demonstrated that Soroban transaction requests commanding for a refund and fee-bumped interfere with the program. After assessing the bug, the SDF team observed that the existing code does not send the refund request to the fee-bump account as required.
The SDF confirmed that the Soroban has been in operation since last October. After the launch of Soroban, the Stellar team has been working on engineering the protocol to attract a large audience. Additionally, the SDF plans to launch a $100 million fund to support the developers building on Soroban.
