This pre-release is a milestone that will be extensively audited and tested over the coming months. Once any bugs identified during this phase are fixed, we will release v1 and begin the process of deploying it to the Cosmos Hub.
High level overview of what is included in this pre-release:
- Implementation of the protocol
- Validator set change packets and confirmations: Keep validator set in sync on consumer chains
- Slashing packets: Punish validators on the Hub for downtime and double signing on consumer chains
- Distribution packets: Allow consumer chains to send a variable percentage of fees and inflation to the Hub as a payment for security
- Cosmos SDK modifications: Small modifications to Cosmos SDK modules
- Testing
- Unit tests: Live alongside the code and test individual functions.
- Integration tests: Spin up a 6 node network simulating the Hub and a consumer chain, run on every code change.
- Differential tests: A model of the protocol in Python is tested alongside the real system to uncover the most complicated bugs.
- Testnets: 3 small private testnets, first among the dev team, then expanding to include some validators