Last updated Dec 24, 2019 Upgrading The Forbidden Forest The Forbidden Forest Share Introduction It would be right to say that everyone involved in The Forbidden Forest have big dreams.We want to become a globally recognized player and a leader in the blockchain sector.We aim to become a hugely successful, globally distributed, autonomous blockchain eco-system.As with any big dreams this requires some serious growth and development, and that’s exactly what we plan to do.This growth and development always leads to change and we have some big changes in the pipeline.However, when you talk about making technical changes within a blockchain environment you often have to manage this through some unique processes.If these changes significantly affect the underlying technology of a blockchain protocol a hard fork is often required.What is a Hard Fork? A hard fork is a permanent divergence from the previous version of a blockchain ; a new set of consensus rules are introduced into the network that is not compatible with the older network.
In other words, a hard fork can be thought of as a software upgrade that is not compatible with previous versions of the software.All network participants are required to upgrade to the latest version of the software in order to continue verifying and validating new blocks of transactions.Under a hard fork, blocks that are confirmed by nodes that are not yet upgraded to the latest version of the protocol software will be invalid.Nodes running the previous version of the software will have to follow the new set of consensus rules in order for their blocks to be valid on the forked network.In the event of a hard fork, if there is still mining support for the minority chain, then two blockchains can continue to exist simultaneously.A good example of this is the Bitcoin / Bitcoin Cash hard fork, which happened when a large proportion of Bitcoin miners decided not to switch to mining using the updated Bitcoin protocol resulting in the Bitcoin Cash chain being created.Why are we hard forking? As mentioned in the introduction when making changes to the protocol layer a hard fork will occur, which exactly what we are planning.The change I am referring to is to remove the Mimblewimble protocol from The Forbidden Forest blockchain .
Mimblewimble is the layer which enables totally private transaction.When we apply the updated software it will no longer be possible to send totally private transactions on our blockchain .However, anonymous transactions will still be possible due to obfuscation that happens naturally within a blockchain environment.Why are you removing Mimblewimble? The decision to remove Mimblewimble has not been an easy one.
Private transactions are something we really hoped to utilize within our eco-system.
Unfortunately, even though it is a cool and often useful feature we have found it to also be a hindrance when it comes developing The Forbidden Forest further.We want our platform to be utilized and accepted by everyone, everywhere on a global scale.Unfortunately, evolving regulations and the overall growth of the blockchain industry is constantly making life harder for privacy coins.
blockchains which enable private transactions are often looked down upon and left out in the cold when it comes to general acceptance, legalities and exchange listings.
We don’t want this one feature to stop us delivering on a much bigger dream.We have to look at the bigger picture and focus on our longer term plans of achieving really great things for all stakeholders.This is actually going to be a really positive move for all of us, it will open up lots of new opportunities for our eco-system and we are already excited for some of the future developments we are going to be able to bring to you.After months of careful consideration our foundation and all of our node operators have agreed that this is the right decision.Having a decentralized governance model means that if all stakeholders vote for a particular decision, then this decision must be listened to.
Discussions over which consensus protocol we will be moving to are still currently being finalized.We will have more details on this very soon.Do I need to do anything? As a user of The Forbidden Forest there is no need for you to do anything.You can still use your Forest Plus, Forest Coins and all of our dApps as usual.We will do all of the hard work.This is just the beginning of a new chapter for The Forbidden Forest and we’re excited to have you come on this journey with us.
When will the hard fork happen We currently plan to roll out the update in January 2020, but we will give you more information as we get closer to getting everything ready.We have a lot of cool updates coming! Follow us so you don’t miss out! .