Bitcoin ABC Developers Publish Bitcoin Cash Upgrade Timeline

Just recently the Bitcoin ABC development team has published the Bitcoin Cash ‘November 15 Upgrade Timeline’ which details what the programmers plan to do before the hard fork. As the upgrade approaches the ABC development team wants to ensure a smooth hard fork by making sure every full node participant and miner is ready with the necessary preparations.

Also read: Privacy-Centric ‘Bob Wallet’ Adds Bitcoin Cash Support

Preparing for the Next Bitcoin Cash Hard Fork

The Bitcoin Cash (BCH) network is planning for another hard fork this coming November which will see a few more changes to the protocol. So far since the split on August 1 the BCH community performed two successful hard forks with one on November 13, 2017, and the other on May 15, 2018. The first upgrade fixed the network’s Difficulty Adjustment Algorithm (DAA), while the second hard fork saw a 32 MB block size increase alongside a few re-enabled Satoshi OP_Codes, and the increase default datacarriersize to 220 bytes.

The Bitcoin ABC development timeline does not reveal what will be added this November as far as features are concerned. However, the programmers do explain two key goals as for the next codebase upgrade with the first being code completion by August 15, 2018.

“Due to the higher-than-normal risk associated with protocol upgrades, everyone needs time to review the code changes involved,” explains the latest upgrade timeline.  

To accommodate that, Bitcoin ABC is targeting August 15th as its code completion date — Protocol changes past this date will be recommended for next year’s May hard fork.

October 15, 2018: The Official Bitcoin ABC 0.18 Release and Testnet Launch Date  

Moreover, when the code is polished, testing on testnet will begin, explains the Bitcoin ABC team, revealing the deadline and 0.18 official release will be on October 15, 2018.

“Barring the discovery of any major issues after two months of testnet testing and debugging, Bitcoin ABC will launch the official release for version 0.18,” the timeline details.        

This will give node operators approximately 30 days to upgrade in time for the hard fork.

Discussions and Proposals

According to an ABC team member, the discussions and the development on the table include various features and some things will be skipped until the next fork in May 2019. Right now developers are discussing and testing “canonical transaction ordering, OP_Datasigverify and variants, tokenization, UTXO commitments, and reintroducing other previously removed OP_Codes.”   

Other proposals that are under development that might make the cut include: binary contracts via OP_Datasigverify, a more efficient way of announcing blocks with Graphene, a revised DAA, double spend proof creation and forwarding, and maybe a nomenclature for the unit of 1/1,000,000 BCH. As of now, there are no guarantees on any of these improvements this coming November or next May. But when the new codebase is launched people will surely find out what features are coming with the next upgrade. Another thing to note is that there has been no mention of a block size increase this time around, and this BCH hard fork may not include an increase.

What do you think about the preparations and timeline for the next Bitcoin Cash network upgrade coming this November? Let us know your thoughts on this subject in the comment section below.

Images via Shutterstock, Pixabay, Bitcoin ABC & BCH logos. 

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