Neo has released Neocli v3.8.0. This is an update that includes a hard fork that provides the Neo Council with the ability to change block generation times. The T5 Testnet will be upgraded on April 30th, and the mainnet hard fork is scheduled for May 14th.
To avoid compatibility issues, the node must be updated before a hard fork named Echidna. The testnet fork is planned at blocks 5,870,000, while the main net fork will be conducted at blocks 7,300,000.
Block time adjustment
The most notable new feature in the upgrade is support for block time management in policy-native contracts. This change was made to support the proposal to reduce the generation time of the target block from 15 seconds to 3 seconds. This improves the responsiveness and general usability of the N3 public network.
The gas production rate is reliably consistent, so the number of gases produced per block decreases from 5 to 1. These changes are not yet active and require approval from the NEO Council via multi-sig voting, which is expected to occur in about three months, allowing time for DAPP to adapt.
Two new ways to do it –SetMillisecondsPerBlock and GetMillisecondsPerBlock– As added to the policy agreement, set block time and query in a chain. Developers are advised to update DAPPs that rely on hard-coded block intervals and use the contract method instead.
Other parameters including MaxValidUntilBlockIncrement and MaxTraceableBlocks It has also moved to a policy agreement to ensure future changes are consistent across the network.
Other improvements
Neocli v3.8.0 includes a variety of other improvements. These include rework CalculateNetworkFee How to better handle contract signers and better handle support for public key recovery using SECP256K1.
This milestone release also introduces notarization services pioneered by NEO SPCC as a NEOGO expansion. Notary is an over-chain signature collection service that simplifies DAPP contracts and backend logic that require multi-signature.
The implementation takes the form of new native contracts, notaries, and new transaction attributes. NotaryAssisted. This service is actively used internally by Neofs, and with v3.8.0, all Dapps will be able to consume.
This release also introduces the term “datoshi” which is the smallest gas unit similar to Bitcoin Satoshi. Although primarily semantic, its inclusion refers to an increase in standardization within ecosystems.
Security and performance were key focuses in this release. Updates include time-limited encryption comparisons, SHA-512 support, memory optimization for core components, enhanced RPC error reporting, and various bug fixes.
The full announcement can be found at the link below.
https://x.com/neo_blockchain/status/191742595252125662
