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- The Dash blockchain experienced a halt during the activation of its Dash Core v19 hard fork, with developers announcing a v19.1.0 fix about 13 hours later.
- Binance temporarily suspended the distribution of Dash mining rewards while the blockchain was down, and the next hard fork attempt has been rescheduled for June 14.
Hard Fork Fail Halts Dash Blockchain
On May 21, Dash’s blockchain experienced a stoppage during the activation of its Dash Core v19 hard fork, as declared by Chief Technical Officer Samuel Westrich on Twitter. Roughly 13 hours later, developers reported a v19.1.0 fix to the issue.
While the blockchain was down, developers issued a warning that
“blocks and transactions on the Dash network that are not ChainLocked and not InstantSend locked should not be assumed to have true finality.”
These security features are unique to Dash. During this time, Binance paused the distribution of Dash mining rewards.
The update, which was announced on April 10, was designed to strengthen security with BLS signatures, introduce high-performance master node implementation, enhance wallet functionalities, and more. These improvements were intended to prepare for the launch of Dash Platform to the mainnet.
Preparing for Future Upgrade and Understanding the Impact
According to the v19.1.0 release description, this upgrade will resolve bugs, while the v19.0.0 release is postponed until June 14. The developers assured,
“This release should resolve the chain stall once a sufficient number of masternodes and miners have upgraded.”
At the time of reporting, a Dash blockchain explorer indicated that the last Dash block was processed about 16 hours prior. The v18 update of Dash, implemented around Sept. 13, 2022, was also upgraded in January following an attempted hack that forced some master nodes offline.
It’s worth noting that Dash Core is the network that the Dash privacy coin operates on, which originated from Litecoin in 2014. Recently, the United States Securities and Exchange Commission classified the Dash coin as a security in its April complaint against Bittrex.
The recent blockchain halt is expected to be a temporary setback, with developers focused on addressing the issue promptly. This incident underscores the need for continuous improvements and rigorous testing in the constantly evolving blockchain technology landscape.