We’re happy to report the upgrade from bitcoin core 0.8.6 to 0.12 is complete and we’ve begun internal testing. We’ve already discovered some issues we’re working on fixing ahead of the public beta which will start in February. We’re also working on getting the supporting systems up and ready for the public test such as the price-peg updater, help documentation and other materials that will make the adoption of Syscoin Decentralized Marketplaces, Messaging, Escrow, Certificates and related features easy and painless for both merchants and buyers- whether they’re familiar with SYS today or not. As we get closer to our target release window of February 2016 we want to continue to communicate progress updates primarily via our blog and slack
http://join.syscoin.org/. We always welcome user feedback via our reddit
https://www.reddit.com/r/Syscoin or bitcointalk (here).
CONVERTING FROM SYS TO SYSCOIN 2.0There have been several questions about how the conversion from SYS [hereafter referred to as SYS1] to Syscoin2/Shade [hereafter referred to as SYS2] will work, what to do, etc. We want to make this transition as easy as possible and will be working directly with exchanges to ensure all SYS1 is properly converted to SYS2 so no action is needed if your coins are on an exchange.
The process will be as simple as importing your SYS1 private key into the new SYS2 wallet. The team will take a network snapshot at the hardfork block- currently planned for somewhere around block 800k (exact date/block to be announced). Your SYS1 balance as of the network snapshot will be converted to SYS2 based on the amount you hold at the time of the network snapshot and per the max coins reduction (from 2bil to 6.68mil, 1 SYS2 per every 299.4 SYS1. SYS1 and SYS2 operate on two different blockchains. Immediately following the network snapshot/hardfork the exchanges will switch over to the new SYS2 chain, the ticker will remain ‘SYS’ and it will now refer to the new chain. For clarity we will be maintaining a list of exchanges we are working with to transition to SYS2 and the progress/status of their transition. You will retain your SYS1 on the SYS1 chain after the transition, the Syscoin team will no longer be maintaining or paying attention to that chain after the hardfork and SYS2 will become the official Syscoin/SYS chain.
ONE MORE THING…We have one more feature we were able to slip in prior to the February release target. We’re holding off publishing details on this feature until sometime later in February when it is naturally going to be revealed through public testing. We want to keep a few surprises up our sleeves! We’re still debating the best time to publicly push marketing for the Shade release and its many features/benefits- either when we release the final beta or after the mainnet release and exchanges have made the transition to the new chain. First impressions are everything and we don’t want to be attracting eyeballs before we have something to show nor do we want to confuse people by walking them into a beta and then starting to talk about all this transition info. We’re generally holding back our public marketing efforts at the moment, although we are developing marketing materials and support documentation to facilitate and publicize the release when the time is right.
The team is excited to see Syscoin running on Bitcoin core 0.12 with the full feature set we’ve been talking about for a year fully realized- from price pegging to escrow and more. We want to remind the community that while the core has been upgraded to 0.12 the GUI still has many improvements we want to make, which are our top priority following the release/transition. Updating the wallet user experience and aesthetics does not require any sort of coordinated effort as is required with the hardfork. We want the wallet to be pleasing and easy to use as much as the community does, and we’ve designed the features themselves at a core level to provide for a friendly user experience. While the initial wallet may not look as polished as we’d like we’ll have a 2.1 release out shortly following the transition which brings a much more polished dressing to the entire experience.