🆕 Solana v1.17 Update

Solana v1.17 emphasizes the focus on network stability, efficiency, and privacy, with significant strides in ZK proofs, gossip protocol, and network optimization.

The Solana v1.17 update brings several key enhancements and features to the network:

Enhanced Testing and Stability: v1.17 underwent extensive testing on the Testnet and Mainnet-Beta canary nodes, ensuring stability and performance under high transaction loads.

ZK Token Proof Program: Initially planned for v1.16, this program introduces ZK proofs for token balances and transfer amounts, enhancing privacy while maintaining transparency for auditing.

Poseidon Syscalls: This introduces a new, efficient way to compute Poseidon hashes, which are crucial for zero-knowledge proofs, making the Solana network more conducive to privacy-preserving applications.

alt_bn128 Syscalls: Slated for release in v1.17.15, these syscalls enhance support for zero-knowledge computations, particularly those requiring elliptic curve operations.

Confidential Transfers: Enabled by the ZK Token Proof Program, this feature allows for encrypted token transfers, ensuring privacy without sacrificing the ability to perform computations on encrypted data.

Command Line Interface (CLI) Support: The update extends CLI support for Confidential Transfers, including commands for configuring accounts, depositing and withdrawing tokens, and transferring tokens confidentially.

Gossip Protocol Improvements: The update optimizes message propagation, reducing unnecessary data exchange and improving network efficiency.

Streamlined Validator Startup: A new flag and snapshot format updates expedite validator startup, improving network resilience.

All You Need to Know About Solana's v1.17 Update

🐛 Solana Mainnet Beta Outage Report

Solana experienced a significant outage on February 6, 2024, which lasted for about five hours.

Anza has released a comprehensive report on details of what caused the outage, and how it was addressed.

The root cause was identified as a complication with legacy programs within the blockchain's Just-In-Time (JIT) compilation cache. This system is designed to speed up transaction processing by efficiently recalling and executing program instructions.

However, a bug occurred with some older programs, causing the JIT cache to enter an endless loop, repeatedly recompiling these programs instead of executing their instructions.

This created a bottleneck that stalled the network, preventing the processing of transactions.

To resolve the issue, Solana engineers led by the team at Anza, implemented a fix in v1.17.20 that updated how the system handles these older programs.

Specifically, they disabled the deployment of problematic legacy loaders, which allowed the system to correctly and efficiently access all program instructions without falling into the recompilation loop.

This fix restored the network to normal operations and highlighted the importance of continuous improvement and safeguards in blockchain technology to prevent similar incidents in the future.

2024–02–06 Solana Mainnet Beta Outage Report

👩‍🎓 60 Days of Solana Course for EVM Developers

The 60 Days of Solana course, presented by RareSkills, is designed for experienced Ethereum/EVM developers looking to bring their expertise to Solana.

This course is built on the idea that transitioning Ethereum developers do not need to start from scratch.

The content is structured to start with topics that have direct analogs in Ethereum, enabling learners to directly relate their Ethereum knowledge by asking "How do I achieve X in Solana that I am used to doing in Ethereum?"

Minimal knowledge of Rust is required, with the course focusing only on the essential aspects for Solana development.

The "60 Days of Solana" course will be released in bite-sized pieces to ensure digestibility and minimize overload.

60 Days of Solana: A Solana Course By RareSkills

💎 Solana Developer News

Solana MCM Founder’s Bootcamp
The 2024 Solana Foundation MCM Founders’ Bootcamp is an intensive two-week program for projects and founders in the Mandarin Cantonese Market who are building on Solana. The Bootcamp is a hybrid virtual and in-person meetup that runs from Feb 26th to Mar 9th.

Jupiter Working Groups
JWGs are independent groups led by community leaders to grow Jupiter, enhance Solana ecosystem, and coordinate DAOs. The JWG is a model for other project DAOs on how to grow your own community by tackling key areas like marketing, development, or even grants.

Solana Wallet Drainers
Blowfish is warning Solana users of two new Solana wallet drainers: Aqua and Vanish. These work by executing a sophisticated “bitflip” attack. A bitflip attack tricks a user into signing a transaction that seems harmless, but is then altered by an attacker to drain the user's wallet by manipulating the conditions within a program after the user's signature is obtained.

⚡Quick Hits

SolanaFM January Updates Recap - @solanafm

Introducing Utilit3: How crypto apps can help everyday people - Utili3

Five ideas for Farcaster frames that are OPOS. - Superteam

Solana & Ethereum Transaction Fee Mechanisms: Proposals to Improve Solana’s TFM - Eclipse

How To Create and Mint an SPL Token using Solidity and Solang - QuickNode

Why ChadsNFT chose to build Oon Solana - ChadsNFT

Work DAO applications are open - Work DAO

The Past, the Present and the Future of Solana - Madhatt3r

⚙️ Tools & Resources

cnft-spam-filter is an open source cNFT spam filter and API that uses a combination of machine learning based on OCR and on-chain data.

SolfateHQ DevList is the full list of all holders and token mint addresses of the SolfateHQ DevList NFT. Very useful if you want to provide airdrops to DevList members.

🎧 Listen to This

The Gwart Show

There’s a new podcast in the mix, where Gwart “asks the hard questions to Crypto Twitter's most colorful characters.”

In this episode Gwart interviews Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko to talk Eth, monolithic architecture, Saga Phone, and more.

Was The Rollup Roadmap A Mistake? With Anatoly Yakovenko

Thanks for reading ✌️

I hope you found something useful here! If you have any suggestions or feedback just let me know what you think.