With article contributions from Drew Mailen & WIsdom Nwokocha

Accumulate developers are announcing the release of Testnet 5.0, Pennybacker, named after the Pennybacker Bridge in Austin, Texas. The through-arch bridge crossing Lake Austin connects the northern and southern sections of the Capital of Texas Highway. Nearly 48,000 vehicles cross the bridge daily. Often referred to as the “360 Bridge,” it is one of the most scenic roads because of its hills and weathering steel. Read more about the fixes, updates, and releases that are now live on Accumulate as a part of Testnet 5.0. 

Compatibility

From this point onwards (until further notice), there will be two Testnets to make sure that third-party applications can remain stable. In addition, the DevNet will remain. The mobile application is compatible with the Stable version of the Testnet. 

1. Testnet Stable is Testnet 4.0 
2. Testnet Beta is Testnet 5.0 
3. DevNet is DevNet 

The mobile application will point to the Testnet Stable (4.0) endpoint, which will be compatible with the Testnet Stable Branch (Develop Branch – Tag v0.6.0 of the Devnet) in the CLI and Testnet Stable option in the Explorer (https://explorer.accumulatenetwork.io/). 

To Use New Accumulate Features 

To use new features in Accumulate, connect to the Testnet Beta (5.0) Branch (Develop Branch – Tag v0.7.0-beta) in the CLI and use the Testnet Beta option in the Explorer (https://beta.explorer.accumulatenetwork.io/). 

Interacting with Devnet 

To interact with the Devnet use the Develop branch in the CLI and the Devnet option in the explorer (https://dev.explorer.accumulatenetwork.io/). 

Switching Between Git Branches 

To switch from one branch to another in the CLI type git branch and the branch you would like to connect to. Make sure to do a git pull and go build to get the latest updates in the CLI. 

Protocol Highlights

• Sign a message with the CLI – The ability to sign a message with the CLI will be particularly helpful for our Staking Model. A transaction will need to be signed to withdraw tokens.
• Guarantee Synthetic Transaction Delivery – Provides a proof that synthetic transactions have reached their destination
• Major Block Design – Major Blocks capture the state of the network every 12 hours and will be anchored into other Layer 1 Protocols
• Add Test Coverage for Different Signature Types – 
• Anchoring the DN into the DN – This is necessary for providing cryptographic proofs

Accumulate 0.6.1 Release Notes – 05/01/22

🚀  New 

Routing debug tool

Remove redundant slippage parameter from cli credit purchase

Handle synthetic transactions sent out of order

Rename key page entry ‘owner’ to ‘delegate’

Eliminate the mirror transaction

Add linters

Sign a message with the cli

Anchor the DN in the DN

Require approval from a key book when adding that key book to the authority set of an account

Review Rosetta API Endpoints

Staking Implementation Document

Eliminate the data chain

Split up synthetic anchor transaction

Query specific block by height

 Create the operator key books

Major block design

Clarify wording in receipt

Add test coverage for legacyEd25519, btc, btcLegacy, eth in cli tests

ABCI snapshot functions

Do not create empty blocks

Require proof of external dependencies when executing certain operations

Guarantee synthetic transaction delivery

🔧  Fixes 

Improve error messages

Fix flaky anchor test

API does not support delegated signatures

Query-minor-blocks does not return “total”

Refactor delegated signatures and key handling

Unionize executor requests

Make data entry a tagged union

Move test coverage of administrative test function in validate.sh to separate file