Filecoin v16 Skyr Network Upgrade

The Filecoin Network will be performing a Network Upgrade to version v16, codenamed Skyr, at epoch 1960320 around 14:00 UTC on July 6th, 2022.

This upgrade introduces the non-programmable Filecoin Virtual Machine to the network, and switches the network from using go-based spec-actors to Rust-based built-in actors, with a new gas model.

⚠️ We suggest upgrading your nodes to this version as soon as possible, as all nodes are required to be on >= v1.16 before the mainnet upgrade! ⚠️

You can check the release note with the details of the upgrade here (Github)

What is new about it:

Built-in actor bundles

As the network introduces FVM, it's also switching from spec-actor (written in GoLang) to built-in actor (written in rust), in which the latter comes with importable bundles. This means, like Filecoin proof parameters, node operators now also need to fetch the actor bundles according to the network versions for the nodes to remain operational.

Actor Code CIDs

From nv16, system actor code CIDs will be real content-addressing instead of being a static string like (fil/7/account)/ (fil/8/storageminer). Moreover, this also means that in the future, whenever the actor code changes, the CID will change accordingly, which will result in a need for a network upgrade for the network participants to have consensus over what executable code we should use for each system actor.

Execution trace

For developers that are dependent on lotus execution trace, you will need to enable LOTUS_VM_ENABLE_TRACING envvar to get the exact execution trace response as before. Without the envvar enabled, Duration and GasCharges fields will be missing from the new FVM trace.

Filecoin-Rosetta integration

Rosetta is an open standard that simplifies the deployment and interaction with any blockchain. Since this standard can theoretically fit any blockchain out there, it makes it ideal to be implemented as an integration tool, in particular by exchanges or by any entity that needs to support several chains and doesn't want to adapt their internal systems every time they want to support a new blockchain.

At Zondax we develop and maintain the Rosetta integration for Protocol Lab's Filecoin project, tailored specially to the use cases of exchanges, with focus on:

• Blocks indexing and in-depth transactions inspection

• Getting accounts information such as balances and vesting schedules

• Network status inspection tools

• Transactions creation and signing tools

Filecoin signing tools - wallet tools

Many well known wallets in the Filecoin ecosystem depend on Zondax’s libraries to interact with the network. Zondax filecoin-signing-tools covers the signing process, to be used as a Rust or WASM library, and also to be used along with JSONRPC.

Dockerized Filecoin Node

We have also worked on a dockerized Filecoin node, that is  ready to be used for playing on a devnet or running a test node connected to mainnet/testnet.

You can find more information in the following links:

• Skyr: network updates

• Atomic switch to non-programmable FVM

• Lotus releases (Github)