I am pleased to release the most current version of Guncoin - GUN V1.2. As I have said before, this is an interim release as a soft fork. While it is not mandatory that everyone upgrade with V1.2, it is recommended that they do. You will find it is far superior to V1.1 and much more efficient and functional. It is very simple to use - once it is loaded, let it sync on its own, there are seed nodes built into the system now and it only takes about an hour to download the entire block chain now. You will notice a new splash screen and a few extra features and options available in the wallet itself. It is available on the OP or the website for Windows and Apple/MAC. This release does NOT include any Linux versions. We chose NOT to do those at this time, but will have those available in the next release.
Having polled the community in recent months, there was no clear consensus as to the best path forward as to what should be included. So moving forward, to us, it seemed the logical best path forward at this time was to :
1) Modernize the coin and wallet to meet or beat all the current crypto currency technology standards, while applying lessons learned from other coins and several years of technological advancements as the crypto currency market matured.
2) Secure and protect the coin and its users from those who would seek to disrupt the normal course of crypto currency business transactions surrounding our coin. With this I refer to the blockchain, your wallets and the day to day transactions that GUN is and will be used for.
3) Simplify the startup process for the new user or the first-time crypto currency novice (ie, working seed nodes, faster wallet, self-executing WIN setup, etc.) - you will notice the config file is greatly simplified.
4) Improve the efficiency and speed of the wallet itself and add a few new features where possible. (V1.2 can create a fresh wallet and download the entire block chain in a little over an hour.)
Those are in order of priority as well. So those may sound like some very vague and generic goals. However, in reality they are very specific and without them and the changes they bring internally, the coin would go nowhere and be unsafe to use (as many smaller coins out there are today). With this series of upgrades starting with GUN V1.2, GUN moves a step closer to being one of the more efficient, technologically advanced and secure coins in the crypto currency world today. THAT is a much easier sale to a newbie gunshop owner than we have ever seen before.
To do all this is not simple. It is costly, tedious and time consuming and dangerous to roll all of that into one release and dump it as hard fork on an unsuspecting community, exchanges and pools. As such, we are going to roll it all out in what we think is a very well tested series of releases (probably 2-3) over the next 6-8 weeks - maybe sooner if all goes well. Of course, we are still a Neoscrypt coin - absolutely no changes there - we are thrilled to be one of the small number of Neoscrypt coins and are still convinced that is the right algorithm and direction for GUN.
As for the rest of the details of what is in GUN V1.2, for those who are very familiar with our code, you know V1.1 and earlier was based on bitcoin 0.8. After the release of V1.2, we will be closer to or a little past 0.9. Since bitcoin 1.3 is floating around out there now, it is not hard to figure out what comes next. More details are in the Release notes on GitHub. I am not a big fan of published roadmaps - it makes it easy for someone to change the signs or lay landmines in front of you. For the most part, this upgrade is a major step forward for GUN and our community.....there is more to come. Please spread the word. As always, I appreciate your patience and support.
This is great to see.
It may not be flashy news to some, but having a more secure blockchain to help security and make this a more solid coin sounds like the way to go.
I see no problems with timing releases to ensure the best transition forward.
There is no reason to rush things, and many reasons to not.
Downloaded the new wallet and it did sync in about an hour on a computer that had never seen the GUN blockchain before.
Didn't have to worry about a config file setup.
This was an extremely easy install, and hopefully so to any newcomers.
