In this Dev update, we are excited to share on our latest testnet named Croeseid. In this release, we have a new codebase based on Cosmos SDK and we have updated our ecosystem projects in preparation of revealing our latest testnet.
Crypto.com Chain Croeseid Tesnet
The name “Croeseid” is derived from the world’s first gold and silver bimetallic coin that unleashed the rapid diffusion of coinage throughout the ancient world. This resonates with Crypto.com’s mission: to accelerate the world’s transition to cryptocurrency, powered by Crypto.com Chain.
The project is open sourced and you can find the source code here.
Consensus and Networking
The Croeseid testnet continues to use Tendermint as its consensus engine and network. Tendermint is one of the most mature Byzantine-fault tolerant (BFT) consensus engines for building proof-of-stake systems. It is also a reliable engine to manage the network and P2P connections.
Account model
In the Croeseid testnet, the account model is simplified and users only have to manage one account address for both transfers and staking operations.
Blocks and Transactions
Cosmos SDK has a well-developed standard of block and transaction format. In the latest Croeseid testnet, apart from the existing features of transfer and validator participation, we have enabled delegation of stake and governance modules. These features have enriched our chain and increased self-autonomy.
Easier Node Setup
With the latest Crypto.com Chain Croeseid Testnet, node setup procedure has never been easier. Now you only need to run a single executable file to start up all the necessary services. It only take 5 steps to set up a node connecting to our public testnet*.
Ecosystem and Development
The decision of using Cosmos SDK has provided developers and partners with convenient integrations. We now require only a single binary file which works across multiple platforms (e.g. Linux, MacOS, Windows). SGX requirement is optional so you can deploy our testnet node in most cloud vendors.
Croeseid testnet has been running since October and we invite you to join our testnet to experience all the new and exciting features; at the same time help us to grow and improve our chain. You can find the source code here and the setup guide here. Contributions are always welcome.
* 5 steps is the minimum setup including installation, initialization, downloading genesis file, and two steps to configure your node. You may want to perform additional configurations and have to start the node before you can use it.
Block Explorer
We have updated our block explorer to support the latest Croeseid Testnet. It is based on our existing user-friendly interface with details updated to display new features available on the new testnet.
For example, the transaction view has been slightly updated so that users can quickly learn about messages that are included in the transaction. You can also toggle to view the message details of your interest.
Our block explorer has already supported all the transaction and message types on the new testnet. In the future we will introduce an account view, council node up-time and governance proposal view to the explorer so that it will continue to be one of the best explorers out there for all our valuable Crypto.com Chain users. Please stay tuned for the updates.
Using the Ledger App
Right now you can use the Ledger Hardware Wallet to securely manage your Testnet CRO assets. We have leveraged the Cosmos ecosystem and offer our proprietary Crypto.com Chain Ledger application.
The Ledger app is fully featured, so you can use it to generate addresses.
It can also be used to sign all supported transaction types.
You can find the instructions on how to install the application to your Ledger device and how you can use it to interact with our latest testnet here.
Note that our application is in beta stage and only applicable to the Crypto.com Chain Croeseid Testnet. Never install our application on a Ledger with real funds inside nor use it to manage your CRO funds on the Ethereum network as you may lose your funds.
AWS and Azure 1-Click Deployment
Although our node setup procedure is much easier now, we decided to take it one step further by introducing the 1-click deployment on AWS and Azure platform. With 1-click deployment, you can enjoy an even easier testnet node setup on the cloud platform.
This is useful for users who don’t want to keep their own computer running and they could leverage existing cloud providers to create stable testnet nodes and join as one of our validators on the testnet as well.
AWS 1-click deployment is now available on AWS Marketplace and. You can find the instructions for setting up AWS here and Azure here.
New JavaScript Library available on NPM
To facilitate the integration of different ecosystem projects with our latest Croeseid testnet, we have just released a new JavaScript library on NPM. It supports address generation as well as hierarchical-deterministic wallet (HD wallet) management.
On the transaction side, it provides a friendly function interface so that you can construct your transaction and sign it step-by-step. With the TypeScript definitions, you can easily navigate the available transaction types and create them accordingly.
With proper polyfills and setup, the library can be used on a browser as well. You can leverage projects like webpack or other browserify libraries to do so. In the future, we will also release a browser version to facilitate the adoption.
Install it on your Node.js project using `npm install @crypto-com/chain-jslib`, you can also find the source code here.
Chain Indexing Service
To power our informative block explorer, we have built a robust chain data indexing service to index and post-process all the information on the chain.
With our latest testnet, we have taken this opportunity to re-implement the service from scratch and adopt a Command Query Responsibility Segregation (CQRS) approach. We have indexed most of the on-chain activities into events, which are then indexed into a Postgres database. At the current block height (around 550,000), we have approximately 55,000,000 events indexed.
The tremendous amount of events enables us with flexibility to transform event data into meaningful information. We have written our own projection logic and replayed the events and post-processed the data into a table of our interest to serve the API endpoints.
After we have more experience testing our new chain indexing system, we will open source our work so that the general Crypto.com community can benefit from it.
Latest Documentation
All of the above features are already documented on our Crypto.com Chain documentation site. We have covered node setup instructions, our all-in-one command-line interface “chain-maind”, and different SDK modules we utilized in the Crypto.com Chain.
If you are interested with our latest development and protocol of our chain, the documentation will be your best place to start.
GitHub Discussion
We have enrolled in the GitHub discussion beta programme and now the discussion board is enabled on our repository. The purpose of this discussion is to give out details on our latest releases, encourage more formal discussions as well as provide answers for our future joiners. We welcome you to share your thoughts and propose new ideas using this discussion feature.
Discord Community
We have set up a new Discord Community for technical communication. The new community will gradually replace our existing Gitter channel and provide a better environment to facilitate technical communication and discussion.
Coming Up Next
We are going to release more exciting Chain updates and ecosystem projects in the coming months. Please stay tuned to our Twitter and join us on our NEW Discord channel, set up specifically for our community as we prepare for Mainnet.
Mainnet dry-run competition
In the coming weeks we will announce a Mainnet dry-run competition with exciting prizes. It is an important step to get all our users, potential validators and ourselves ready for Crypto.com Chain Mainnet.
Tendermint Key Management System with SGX and AWS Nitro Enclaves
We have always been exploring different secure options for Tendermint node key management. Key management is a very important topic in validator setup. Our Crypto.com Chain Lead Tomas Tauber and team members have tried and implemented two potentially cost-effective options using Intel(R) SGX and AWS Nitro Enclaves.
These two solutions will provide the validator operators new ways to approach the key management apart from using HSMs.
Tomas Tauber will be sharing the solution at the Cosmos Interchain Conversations II Summit on Dec 12th (PT). Don’t forget to register for the event.
Node Setup Video
While our node setup procedure is much simpler now, we plan to further lower the barrier for interested parties to set up our nodes and try out the Chain features. We are planning to take some videos demonstrating how you can set up your nodes on a Linux machine as well as interacting with the chain. Please stay tuned.
Network Upgrade
After our initial release of Croeseid Testnet, there have been some updates to the Cosmos SDK with some improvements. We are now preparing our next network upgrade to corporate those changes as well as some of our own features.
A tease of those features include experimental IBC support, custom supply modules and more. If you are a validator or are interested, please follow our GitHub and Gitter for the information.
Here are all the updates and future plans of our latest Croeseid Testnet that we wanted to share with you today. Stay tuned for our next Dev update!
