If you are reading this: it is time finish the process of summoning Penumbra into being.
Penumbra is a dream of a better blockchain where privacy is foundational - a dream seen through the haze of possibility, yearned after, and now impossibly made material. It is a story of many years, of learning, experimenting, then carefully creating what was necessary to bring it into the present.
Thank you for taking part in this journey. Penumbra is almost here.
For validators, the time for action is now.
Many of you have participated in the network’s numerous testnets for years. This is the moment in which your hard work will materialize a persistent network. In attending to this information, you are preparing for one of the final steps to summoning Penumbra.
The Penumbra airdrop allows the community to participate in the selection of the genesis validator set by allowing users to stake their airdrop at genesis with a validator of their choice. As we approach the end of the airdrop period, this post describes what validators need to do to prepare for the genesis process. Full details will follow.
Penumbra validators declare themselves ready for mainnet by uploading a validator definition, which specifies the validator’s metadata like the name and description, as well as the consensus key used by CometBFT to sign blocks and participate in consensus. The validator definition is signed by the validator’s long-term identity key, which is the root of their identity and cannot be rotated.
This design allows validators to rotate their consensus keys, and it also allows testnet validators to migrate between networks: in advance of genesis, testnet validators can upload an updated validator definition with their mainnet consensus keys, which Radiant Commons will collect to be included in a proposed mainnet genesis file for the network.
In order to prepare for launch, validators will need to uploading your mainnet validator definition to the Penumbra testnet by Friday, Jun 28, 2024 at 23:30 UTC. Read on for details.
Validators must know the following and take immediate action:
- A snapshot of the testnet validator set will be taken Friday, Jun 28, 2024 at 23:30 UTC. Validators whose definitions are present at the time of the testnet snapshot will have them migrated over to mainnet.
- In advance of the snapshot, validators should update their validator definitions to use the consensus keys they intend to use to sign the genesis block.
- It is not necessary to use these keys in the existing testnet validator deployment. All that is required is to specify the consensus pubkey you intend to use to sign the genesis block in your validator definition.
- If (as recommended) you do not use the mainnet consensus key in your testnet deployment, your testnet validator will stop signing blocks and fall offline. This is not a problem, as the testnet is not long for this world and will continue running using the Penumbra Labs validators (which will not participate in mainnet)
- All validator definitions present on the testnet at the time of the snapshot will be migrated to Penumbra’s mainnet verbatim as they stand on the testnet at the time of the snapshot
- A subset of validators filtered based on delegations made by airdrop claimants will be included as active validators in the proposed genesis file.
- Other validators may join the network as soon as it launches by uploading their definitions and commencing operations following the genesis block.
- A soft launch of Mainnet for Penumbra will take place some time in the next week provided that all information necessary to launch the network is prepared, compiled, available, and ready for launch.
Following the closure of the $UM airdrop claims, Radiant will post a full update that will follow closure of the airdrop, detailing the next steps needed by validators in order to bring the network toward mainnet. Expect this information in subsequent posts to the Penumbra forum.
- Park Feierbach
Radiant Commons