Protocol 20 Mainnet Upgrade Vote January 30, 2024
Justin
Big day today! Stable releases of Protocol 20 software are out, and yesterday's Testnet upgrade was a success!
Next up: on January 30 at 1500 UTC, validators will vote on whether to upgrade the Mainnet to Protocol 20. If and when the vote goes through, the change is immediate: the following ledger, the network will run on Protocol 20, which means it will support Soroban smart contracts!
To make sure you're ready, check out the Protocol 20 Upgrade Guide:
https://stellar.org/blog/developers/protocol-20-upgrade-guide
Because the introduction of smart contracts is a massive change — the biggest to date! Likely the biggest we will ever see! — and because the network is alive and kicking processing millions of operations every day, validators are opting to introduce smart contract functionality in phases. It's the smart thing to do.
Phase 0 will have low resource limits for Soroban transactions to allow network operators to observe the effects of the upgrade. In Phase 1, validators will increase those limits to allow contract developers to test their deployments. And in Phase 2, the limits will be high enough for end users to interact with contracts via Soroban-supporting applications. Read more about the phases in the aptly titled post "The Stellar Network’s Phased Rollout of Smart Contracts"
Now that stable releases are out, that means you — yes you, Stellar developer! — need to get ready for the upgrade vote by installing new versions of any and all Stellar-related software you rely on. All the Protocol 20 software works with Protocol 19, but not vice versa: if you are running Protocol 19 software and the network upgrades…your integration will break. Maybe not immediately, but it's going to happen. What do you need to do? Here's that guide again: https://stellar.org/blog/developers/protocol-20-upgrade-guide
As always, your questions, feedback, suggestions, and conversational grace are welcome on the Stellar Dev Discord, where you can keep up with the latest and greatest Stellar- and Soroban-related developments:
https://discord.gg/stellardev
Justin
Two-week warning: the Mainnet Protocol 20 upgrade vote is scheduled for January 30, 2024 at 1500 UTC. Before that vote, everyone building on Stellar should install up-to-date versions of any and all Stellar software including Stellar SDKs, Horizon, RPC, and Stellar Core. Make sure you're ready!
For more info, see the Protocol 20 Upgrade Guide:
https://stellar.org/blog/developers/protocol-20-upgrade-guide