Olympia Mainnet Launch by Radix
Radix announced Olympia will go live on July 28th to provide time to work on hardware wallet support, and refine Instapass and Instabridge.
The core network is just one part of the bigger picture when launching the Radix Public Network. Since Radix is on the path to supporting billions of transactions and trillions of dollars worth of value in the future, they must be extremely thoughtful about the decisions they make today. To protect community and the network, the Olympia mainnet launch has been moved to July 28th.
What still needs to be done?
1 – Hardware wallet support
To hold, transact, and stake XRD tokens, they believe users need a reliable wallet solution. The Radix Desktop Wallet (as tested on betanet) is included in the Olympia release as one wallet solution to conveniently store XRD and stake them in a few clicks.
However, they understand that many users prefer using a hardware wallet as an additional measure of security, which is why they have been committed to providing Ledger hardware wallet support within the Radix Desktop Wallet. While primary Ledger integration was completed some time ago, recent changes needed for the Desktop Wallet connection have delayed completion.
The core integration is working and will be soon submitted for Ledger HQ for inclusion in their Manager for easy install. However this is too last-minute for comfort, and the review process often can be lengthy, and so they are not confident that it will be available and fully tested before the bootstrapping epoch ends.
Without hardware wallet support, this would leave many XRD token holders who are more comfortable relying on a hardware wallet unfairly not able to immediately participate in staking for network security and receiving emissions.
2 – Instapass
Instapass was introduced as a single sign-on digital identity that can be re-used to make KYC/AML compliance easier for end users. While in concept this service appears relatively straightforward, behind the scenes it involves a number of integrations to third party services, and strict adherence to regulatory requirements.
At the go-live review, integrations were still throwing too many exceptions meaning that it was highly likely that a large proportion of users would get a frustrating experience.
3 – Instabridge
Instabridge was introduced as a cross-ledger asset bridge, starting off with an integration between the Ethereum network and the Radix network, and letting anyone with an Instapass Digital Identity to easily move their eXRD to XRD.
As a result of a number of updates to the Node Runner APIs that were identified as necessary from Betanet testing, they could not test the custodian integrations to control the flow of assets between both ledgers. While they are confident in how the system has been architected, it did not seem advisable to launch the service before proper testing could be carried out. Their first priority with services of this nature is always safety of funds.
While these three items do not technically prevent the launch of the Radix Olympia mainnet, they feel that launching on the 30th of June leaves too many bad trade-offs around user experience and user security. While this will be disappointing to many, they do not make this decision lightly and feel that it would be irresponsible of them to do otherwise.
The team has a high degree of confidence that these issues will be resolved in the coming weeks for a global launch of Olympia on July 28th.
Throughout the Radix Betanet, the core Olympia network has performed well. The Radix community and validators have helped gather and document a wealth of data that is already being used to further optimize the network and node runner experience. Many of these improvements were due to be implemented after the Olympia release, but the additional time will enable these to be included in the launch on July 28th. Exactly how big of a benefit to network performance this will bring still requires testing, but they will be excited to share the results with the community in due course.
Although the Olympia mainnet will be going live a little later than planned, our planned persistent testnet, termed “Stokenet”, will be launching on schedule in the coming days. Stokenet shares the same codebase as Olympia and is the permanent continuously-running testing and staging network that will run in parallel with the mainnet and allow testing prior to deployment on the mainnet, similar to the Ropsten or Rinkeby testnet on Ethereum. Continued productive collaboration and testing with node runners will continue there. Stokenet’s name was chosen as a reference to the birthplace of Radix, Stoke-on-Trent, England.
What is Radix?
Radix is the only decentralized network where developers will be able to build quickly without the constant threat of exploits and hacks, where every improvement will get rewarded, and where scale will never be a bottleneck.
📰 INFO:
https://www.radixdlt.com/post/update-olympia-launching-july-28th
