The start of a new year has provided renewed enthusiasm across the entire crypto world. After a tough year, not only for the crypto market but also in the entire world due to the pandemic, the fulfillment of the IOTA RoadMap has been the cause of significant enthusiasm within the IOTA community. The main reason, is to witness the arrival of the full implementation of Chrysalis getting closer and closer, one of the most important events that the IOTA protocol will experience.
In this post we will make a brief review of the updates that Chrysalis will bring for this month.
Gabriela Jara
IOTA Hispano
Chrysalis: A new dawn
The IOTA Foundation has decided to make some improvements in order to have the IOTA protocol ready for production. With this step, companies working closely with IOTA will be able to accelerate product development and adoption. Moving forward with these improvements means leaving some things aside without abandoning the vision that the IOTA Foundation has had from the very beginning: Connecting millions of people and machines through a commission-free and decentralized protocol.
Today we will focus on one of the most significant upgrades: Chrysalis. Chrysalis release includes multiple improvements in the usability of the network. This intermediate stage will take place previous to the Coordicide (process of eliminating the IOTA Network Coordinator) This means one of the major upgrades of the network.
Last year in August, the first implementation of Chrysalis was successfully carried out allowing the network to reach for the first time 1000 transactions per second (TPS), with a confirmation time between 5 and 10 seconds. Before this implementation, the network was only capable of processing between 5 to 20 TPS. This increase in the number of transactions improves the performance and usability as well as the productivity of a DLT that is intended to be used among thousands of interconnected devices.
Now, the second stage of Chrysalis is expected to be ready by the end of March according to the IOTA Foundation Roadmap. With the arrival of Chrysalis, several aspects of the protocol will be updated, such as the launch of a new wallet, UTXO transactions, reusable addresses, libraries and tools for developers, among others.
New Firefly Wallet and EdDSA Addresses
We have previously said that with the improvement of the IOTA protocol other significant changes would be necessary for the optimization of the new network.
The Trinity wallet, which was used by users to store their tokens for the last few years, will no longer be used and will be replaced by the new wallet: Firefly.
Firefly will allow reusable addresses which can be used in parallel with the WOTS signature scheme. EdDSA (Edwards-curve Digital Signature Algorithm) is a digital signature scheme that is designed to be faster than existing digital signature schemes without sacrificing security, which will drastically reduce the size of transactions and, consequently, allow for a significant increase in TPS.
The introduction of this new signature scheme will make possible an integration with the exchanges. Wallet transactions and integrated payment systems will be much simpler to use, which will be a great improvement for the IOTA user.
Firefly’s technical features and interface are designed with the future in mind so that the user experience can be complete without compromising security.
The new wallet will initially be available for desktop only on Linux, Windows and Mac systems.
The network change will also require a migration of funds as the old network will no longer be supported. The new Firefly wallet will take care of helping users with this process by creating a new seed and EdDSA address for the new network.
Firefly and Stronghold
One of the most significant improvements in the new Firefly wallet is related to security. This first version of the wallet introduces Stronghold.
As written in a recent post by The IOTA Foundation:
«Stronghold is a secure software implementation with the sole purpose of isolating digital secrets from exposure to hackers and accidental leaks. It uses versioned, file-based snapshots with double-encryption that can be easily backed up and securely shared between devices. Written in Rust, it has strong guarantees of memory safety and process integrity.»
There are four main components of Stronghold:
- Client: The high-level interface to Stronghold (prefers Riker, functional integration also available)
- Engine: Combines a persistence store (Snapshot) with an in-memory state interface (Vault).
- Runtime: Is a process fork with limited permissions within which cryptographic operations take place
- Communication: Enables Strongholds in different processes or on different devices to communicate with each other securely.
Migration to the new network
Upgrading to the IOTA network with Chrysalis will require a migration of the IOTA tokens. The migration may take place during two instances:
Pre Chrysalis
Post Chrysalis
If you choose to migrate your tokens to the new network prior to the arrival of Chrysalis, you must perform the process seven days before the upgrade to Chrysalis.
If you choose the second option, after the implementation of Chrysalis, there will be no deadline for token migration, but it must be done before the arrival of Coordicide. Users will be able to migrate their tokens by using the new Firefly wallet, which will guide them through a simple process that will allow their funds to be moved from the old network to the new one.
If you have a Ledger device the migration steps will be the same, just connect your device and perform the migration using Firefly. For funds that are in exchanges, the Foundation is working directly with the exchanges to ensure that the necessary upgrades for this migration are carried out.
Migration Process
Here are the steps to follow:
- Enter your seed to the Firefly wallet.
- The wallet will create a new seed and take care of providing a new EdDSA address needed for the new network.
- Firefly sends your funds to a default migration address on the old network.
- Your funds will be available on the network, at the EdDSA address that Firefly has created for you. If you migrate before the launch of Chrysalis, your funds will be available at the launch of Chrysalis. If you migrate after the Chrysalis release, your funds will be available shortly after the migration.
Some features of the first version of Firefly wallet:
Profiles and accounts: several people will be able to use the application from the same device in a private way without being able to access the wallets or profiles of the other users. In the accounts, users will be able to manage their funds in such a way that they will be able to create separate accounts within the same wallet for different uses.
Another feature will be that your wallet can be opened by a pin designated by the user without revealing the seed. A network performance indicator has also been incorporated so that users can be aware from the wallet itself about the status of the IOTA network.
Firefly also enjoys the many benefits of Chrysalis, including reusable addresses, 24-word retrieval phrases and improved network performance.
Round up
So far we’ve taken a brief look at the features that the Chrysalis implementation will bring in the first stage.
Over the years we have seen how leading companies are interested in IOTA and all the improvements that the implementation of the IOTA protocol could bring to the different markets. Undoubtedly, the arrival of the pandemic forced to accelerate the process of adopting new technologies in sectors that needed to optimize processes to enable them to adapt to the new normality. Connectivity between people and machines was one of the first consequences that was seen to increase.
The evolution of the Industrial Internet of Things is happening in huge steps. The goals to be achieved by the IOTA Foundation are just around the corner thanks to the incredible work being done by each of the members. We can say that the decision to push the protocol towards a final product ready to use, has been a really good decision. In the following weeks we will be updating you with all the announcements and updates that the IOTA Foundation brings us: Manna, Smart Contracts, Oracles, Pollen, Bee among others.
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Source: iota.org
