Dash Blockchain collapses after a faulty upgrade

Dash, the open source, proof-of-work blockchain, is down after a recent hard fork failure. The flaw prevents the network from generating blocks, effectively preventing users from transferring value or making payments securely.

Dash Blockchain is down

As of May 23, Dash blockchain explorer shows that the last block of transactions was confirmed approximately 28 hours ago. The network outage coincides with a failed upgrade on May 22 that would have seen the platform’s code updated to v19.0.0.

The flaw in the failed hard fork is related to how the consensus algorithm in v19.0.0 was supposed to be implemented. It made the network unstable, forcing block generation offline.

The start date of the hard fork has since been delayed to June 14th. However, developers attempted to release a temporary fix about 13 hours after block generation errors were detected.

Released in April 2023, v19.0.0 was intended to improve BLS signatures, reduce block size, and help further scale the network. Improving these signatures would also make the blockchain more efficient and reliable.

Other changes included implementing a high-performance masternode and improving the core wallet. Masternodes serve various functions, including powering some of the platform’s core features such as PrivateSend and InstantSend.

The “InstantSend” feature allows users to send payments instantly without on-chain confirmation. This feature can be used with “PrivateSend”, a tool that mixes transactions and hides transaction traces.

The intervention

Developers have since released version v19.1.0, a “minor version release, which provides various bug fixes and other improvements,” acknowledging the bug in v19.0.0. This release, they add, is mandatory and all validators must be integrated.

An excerpt from v19.1.0 instructions on GitHub reads:

The start date of the v19 Hard Fork has been postponed to June 14th. The earliest hard fork date will be approximately two weeks after this date. A new version will be required before this date to ensure a smooth, hard fork.

Meanwhile, release notes for v19.0.0 link has since been pulled down.

May 22, Samuel Westrich, Chief Technical Officer (CTO), so they are still investigating the issue but will continue to update the community on Twitter.

While the team was investigating the issuer, another developer working on Dash core, the main code that runs the blockchain, said they were “balancing the desire to fix these issues and the need to continue block formation.”

Even in the midst of this, the developer warned that “blocks and transactions on the Dash network that are not ChainLocked and not InstantSend locked should not be assumed to have true finality.”

As block production has been halted, so has Binance suspended the distribution of mining rewards from their Dash Binance Pool. However, normal distribution will resume when block generation starts.

Feature image from Canva, chart from TradingView