CODE_COLOR: CODE_YELLOW_TESTNET
RELEASE_VERSION: 2.8.0-rc.1
PROTOCOL_UPGRADE: TRUE
DATABASE_UPGRADE: FALSE
SECURITY_UPGRADE: FALSE

Protocol Changes

The total number of chunk validators supported by the network is increasing from 300 to 500 allowing more validators to join the network. To maintain the network safety, the number of mandates per shard will also increase from 65 to 105.

Protocol upgrade voting

This release upgrades the protocol version from 79 to 80.
Voting for protocol version 80 will start on Tuesday 2025-09-09 14:00:00 UTC.
To continue participating in consensus, you need to upgrade your node before this time.

If voting succeeds in one epoch, the protocol upgrade to version 80 is expected to happen 7-8 hours after the voting epoch ends. The targeted time is Wednesday 2025-09-10 between 09:00 and 16:00 UTC.