Highlights
- NKN core development team successfully released the latest testnet V0.5 Koala release with new rewritten network stack and enhancements to consensus. Therefore all core functionality of NKN testnet are complete and field tested.
- The public testnet reached a new record high of over 5,000 nodes
- NKN Co-Founders interview with BlockchainBrad to give a comprehensive update on NKN project from technology, business, to community
- NKN partners with DxChain for Decentralized Internet
- NKN Name Service Development Update from Portal Networks
R&D highlights
NKN Testnet V0.5 Koala Release
NKN released testnet v0.5 Koala, on November 1st marking another key roadmap milestone.
Key improvements include:
- Developed and improved the NKN core software for quality and scalability including a rewrite of the entire network layer which is released as a new top level repository nnet (https://github.com/nknorg/nnet) as well as enhancements to the consensus layer.
- Completed phased system scalability optimization and efficiency improvement
- Further enhanced and optimized the functionality of the client SDK and wallet SDK enabling more developers to join the testnet and build dApps on NKN’s protocol.
https://medium.com/@NKN_ORG/nkn-testnet-v0-5-koala-release-a32d11462227
Github source code development progress
NKN testnet code development progress over the last two weeks is mainly reflected in the following two code repositories: nkn, nnet.
The latest release: v0.5.2 is a stable and high performance release.
(https://github.com/nknorg/nkn/releases )
NKN Testnet v0.5.2-alpha
- Verify and handle msg before sending to neighbors to prevent duplicate transaction being broadcasted
- Monitor number of neighbors and exit if node has no neighbors
NKN Testnet v0.5.1-alpha
- Fix bandwidth overuse bug caused by broadcasting
- Node will get and join multiple successors instead of one
- Node will send stop msg before exit
- Node will not accept inbound node before chord is ready
NKN Testnet v0.5.0-alpha
- We have completely rewritten our network layer and now release it as a separate top-level repository named nnet. Since Koala release, we will use nnet as the brand-new, much more efficient and robust network layer with benefits in many aspects. See more at: https://github.com/nknorg/nnet
- Support NAT traversal for UPnP and NAT-PMP protocol
- Support UDP through KCP protocol
- Adjust block generation time and mining reward
- Lots of other improvements and bug fix
nnet Release Notes:
- nnet uses a modular and layered overlay architecture. By default an improved and much more reliable version of Chord DHT protocol is used to maintain a scalable overlay topology, while other topologies like Kademlia can be easily added by implementing a few overlay interfaces.
- Extremely easy to use message sending interface with both async and sync message flow (block until reply). Message reply in sync mode are handled efficiently and automatically, you just need to provide the content.
- Deliver message to any node in the network (not just the nodes you are directly connected to) reliably and efficiently in at most log_2(N) hops (w.h.p) where N is the total number of nodes in the network.
- Novel and highly efficient message broadcasting algorithm with exact once (or K-times where K is something adjustable) message sending that achieves optimal throughput and near-optimal latency. This is done by sending message through the spanning tree constructed by utilizing the Chord topology.
- Powerful and flexible middleware architecture that allows you to easily interact with node/network lifecycle and events like topology change, routing, message sending and delivery, etc. Applying a middleware is as simple as providing a function.
- Flexible transport-aware address scheme. Each node can choose its own transport protocol to listen to, and nodes with different transport protocol can communicate with each other transparently. nnet supports TCP and KCP transport layer by default. Other transport layers can be easily supported by implementing a few interfaces.
- Modular and extensible router architecture. Implementing a new routing algorithm is as simple as adding a router that implements a few router interfaces.
- Only a fixed number of goroutines and connections will be created given network size, and the number can be changed easily by changing the number of concurrent workers.
- NAT traversal (UPnP and NAT-PMP) using middleware.
- Use protocol buffers for message serialization/deserialization to support cross platform and backward/forward compatibility.
- Provide your own logger for logging integration with your application.
NKN testnet reaches over 5000 nodes
The public testnet reached a new historical record of 5,132 nodes observed on November 7th. Out of these nodes, only 963 were deployed by the NKN project team. This indicates that 81% of the test nodes were contributed by the NKN community.
NKN partners with DxChain for Decentralized Internet
NKN and DxChain recently announced a strategic partnership to deliver technology solutions that incorporates compute, storage, and networking for the decentralized internet. Together, both companies are using blockchain to create a shared economic model that encourages everyone to become a network node that shares idle storage, compute power and network transmission capabilities. By leveraging NKN’s blockchain powered communication network and DxChain’s decentralized compute and storage, developers and the community can take full advantage of this open ecosystem to create and use the next generation of applications.
Find out more from our blog post, “DxChain Teams Up With NKN To Decentralize Compute, Storage, and Network”:
NKN Name Service Development Update from Portal Networks
Portal Networks is committed to building the NKN Name service on top of NKN’s network. As such, Portal Networks has successfully started an NKN node and connected to our testnet, as well as demonstrated sending and receiving data between two NKN clients. This is the first step in setting up the environment to create the NKN Name Service. Please find details of their progress in the week 2 medium post below.
https://medium.com/portalnetworkofficial/nkn-week-2-nkn-name-service-development-update-f4bfab92f3d8
NKN Founders interview with BlockchainBrad to give comprehensive update on the project
NKN’s Founder, Yanbo Li, and Co-Founders, Bruce Li and Yilun Zhang spoke exclusively with BlockchainBrad for a full Nov ’18 update. The NKN executive team discussed the latest Koala Testnet, 4,000 node public testnet, new partners, recent innovations, exchanges and more.
Check out the full video here:
Upcoming events
AMA with NKN core team: November 11 at 7:00 UTC
The time has been set for Live AMA on Telegram with NKN core team:
- UTC (GMT) Sunday, November 11, 2018 at 07:00:00
- San Francisco (USA — California) Saturday, November 10, 2018 at 11:00:00 pm
- Beijing (China — Beijing ) Sunday, November 11, 2018 at 3:00:00 pm
- Berlin (Germany — Berlin) Sunday, November 11, 2018 at 8:00:00 am CET
This will be a hybrid offline and online event. Please submit your questions already now:
https://www.reddit.com/r/nknblockchain/comments/9rcyzx/ama_for_octobernov2018/
About NKN
NKN is a new kind of network connectivity protocol & ecosystem powered by blockchain for an open, decentralized, and shared Internet. By blockchainizing the network layer, NKN is providing the missing third pillar of internet infrastructure. Just as Ethereum has done for compute and Filecoin for storage, NKN will decentralize network connectivity and transmission.
Home: https://nkn.org/
Email: contact@nkn.org
Telegram: https://t.me/nknorg
Twitter: https://twitter.com/NKN_ORG
Medium: https://medium.com/nknetwork
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/nknetwork/
Github: https://github.com/nknorg
Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/nknblockchain
Discord: https://discord.gg/yVCWmkC