Stellar (XLM) recently kicked off a major milestone by activating Protocol 21 on its testnet. This move marks a pivotal moment for the Stellar network as the countdown to the mainnet activation of the upgrade begins.
Stellar (XLM) recently kicked off a major milestone by activating Protocol 21 on its testnet. This move marks a pivotal moment for the Stellar network as the countdown to the mainnet activation of the upgrade begins.
On June 18, 2024, validators on the Stellar public network will vote on whether to upgrade the network to Protocol 21 which, if approved, will activate five new core advancement proposals on the Stellar Mainnet.
These five CAPs introduce some new features, such as support for access key signing, an improvement to state filing, and some general cost improvements for smart contract transactions.
Stellar remains committed to constantly improving network efficiency and reducing fees. Its network seeks to provide equal access to the global financial system and CAPs 0054, 0055 and 0056, which will be implemented as part of the protocol 21 update, with the goal of keeping the Stellar network accessible and profitable for all users.
On February 20, 2024, validators voted to upgrade to Protocol 20, which brought Soroban smart contracts to the Stellar public network. Since then, developers around the world have successfully deployed smart contracts on the Stellar Mainnet.
This is what comes next
With protocol 21 now lives On the testnet, the focus is on preparing for deployment to the mainnet, a process that will require careful coordination and testing to ensure a smooth transition.
Once deployed to the mainnet, Protocol 21 is poised to unlock new scalability and functionality for the Stellar network. As the testnet update was released, key dates were updated to reflect this update and version numbers were added to the Protocol 21 release links to reflect the minimum supported versions.
Key dates after the testnet update include:
– May 30: Stable releases of Stellar Core, Horizon, RPC.
– June 11: Testnet reboot to ensure all new deployments are working optimally.
– June 18: Vote to upgrade the mainnet to Protocol 21. The upgrade votes are programmatic as they are part of a regular consensus round and if approved, the upgrade will take effect immediately.
