Newsroom
ParallelChain Mainnet Launches.
23 March 2023
At around 12:00 pm UTC, the first block on ParallelChain Mainnet was created. Its hash was 7y_plya1sw3MZo2FYPRzDioqaY39Mn5JMPMakt6qfqg. Over the following 23 hours, thousands of blocks have been built on top of it at an average cadence of just under 10 seconds. As we write, we are at block height 7971.
This marks the beginning of the canonical ParallelChain Mainnet blockchain history, a chain history that will hopefully grow to support numerous decentralized and resilient operations and form a foundation for pioneering research and experiments in distributed systems programming.
If you followed the link to the genesis block above, you will have seen the new Explorer. Also embedded into the Explorer is the Wallet. These components will be most users' entry point into Mainnet.
Along with the user-facing releases of today, we have also released the source code of HotStuff-rs on GitHub and crates.io. HotStuff-rs Mainnet's consensus implementation, and is currently linking 10 validator nodes operated by ParallelChain Lab.
What to expect soon
Even though Mainnet is live, the coming month of April will continue to be a busy time for our
engineering team.
After collecting blockchain addresses from users who are entitled to XPLL allocations, we will distribute the tokens to these accounts through smart contracts, in accordance with the predefined emission rules.
After token distribution, our next step will be to begin kindling Mainnet's developer community. To start, we will be open sourcing important a handful of tools and libraries that will enable richer interactions with the Mainnet. These include:
Documentation for the ParallelChain Mainnet Remote Procedure Call (RPC) API.
pchain_client (lib): a Rust client library for the RPC.
pchain_client: a CLI client for the RPC.
pchain_sdk: a Rust software development kit library for ParallelChain contracts.
pchain_compile: a compiler for ParallelChain contracts.
Towards fully decentralized deployment
As mentioned previously, Mainnet is currently running exclusively on hardware operated by ParallelChain Lab. In this setting, users can stake their XPLL to a pool (e.g., through the web wallet), but only identified parties can be operating the hardware.
The core property of a blockchain system to us is robustness, in the comprehensive sense of the word. Robustness means infallibly correct execution of the protocol by the validator set, 24/7, and with minimal downtime.
Decentralization—or concretely, the ability for anyone in the world with funds and hardware to join the validator set—will ultimately become a foundation of robustness for Mainnet, but before we open the validator set to everybody, we’d like to see more eyes on our code and our protocol specifications.
Open-sourcing our implementations is part of this, but in addition, we are also currently working with an eminent software security firm to audit our codebase. We expect this process to continue for the next few months, culminating in the release of a thorough security assessment document. After this document is released and identified concerns in the codebase are resolved, we will
open validator set membership to the public.
Send-off
That is all for this release note. We now leave you to peruse Explorer and the HotStuff-rs source code at your own pace. We hope that you find your time in ParallelChain Mainnet enjoyable. If you find an issue with HotStuff-rs, do open an issue on the GitHub, and for everything else, drop us a line on Discord.
At around 12:00 pm UTC, the first block on ParallelChain Mainnet was created. Its hash was 7y_plya1sw3MZo2FYPRzDioqaY39Mn5JMPMakt6qfqg. Over the following 23 hours, thousands of blocks have been built on top of it at an average cadence of just under 10 seconds. As we write, we are at block height 7971.
This marks the beginning of the canonical ParallelChain Mainnet blockchain history, a chain history that will hopefully grow to support numerous decentralized and resilient operations and form a foundation for pioneering research and experiments in distributed systems programming.
If you followed the link to the genesis block above, you will have seen the new Explorer. Also embedded into the Explorer is the Wallet. These components will be most users' entry point into Mainnet.
Along with the user-facing releases of today, we have also released the source code of HotStuff-rs on GitHub and crates.io. HotStuff-rs Mainnet's consensus implementation, and is currently linking 10 validator nodes operated by ParallelChain Lab.
What to expect soon
Even though Mainnet is live, the coming month of April will continue to be a busy time for our engineering team.
After collecting blockchain addresses from users who are entitled to XPLL allocations, we will distribute the tokens to these accounts through smart contracts, in accordance with the predefined emission rules.
After token distribution, our next step will be to begin kindling Mainnet's developer community. To start, we will be open sourcing important a handful of tools and libraries that will enable richer interactions with the Mainnet. These include:
Documentation for the ParallelChain Mainnet Remote Procedure Call (RPC) API.
pchain_client (lib): a Rust client library for the RPC.
pchain_client: a CLI client for the RPC.
pchain_sdk: a Rust software development kit library for ParallelChain contracts.
pchain_compile: a compiler for ParallelChain contracts.
Towards fully decentralized deployment
As mentioned previously, Mainnet is currently running exclusively on hardware operated by ParallelChain Lab. In this setting, users can stake their XPLL to a pool (e.g., through the web wallet), but only identified parties can be operating the hardware.
The core property of a blockchain system to us is robustness, in the comprehensive sense of the word. Robustness means infallibly correct execution of the protocol by the validator set, 24/7, and with minimal downtime.
Decentralization—or concretely, the ability for anyone in the world with funds and hardware to join the validator set—will ultimately become a foundation of robustness for Mainnet, but before we open the validator set to everybody, we’d like to see more eyes on our code and our protocol specifications.
Open-sourcing our implementations is part of this, but in addition, we are also currently working with an eminent software security firm to audit our codebase. We expect this process to continue for the next few months, culminating in the release of a thorough security assessment document. After this document is released and identified concerns in the codebase are resolved, we will open validator set membership to the public.
Send-off
That is all for this release note. We now leave you to peruse Explorer and the HotStuff-rs source code at your own pace. We hope that you find your time in ParallelChain Mainnet enjoyable. If you find an issue with HotStuff-rs, do open an issue on the GitHub, and for everything else, drop us a line on Discord.
