LPU THORChain Updates (Apr 2023)

In this series, LPU aims to give regular condensed “state of THORChain” updates. Enjoy!

1. THORChain Turns Two!

https://twitter.com/THORChain/status/1645421246534877184?s=20

2. Ethereum Chain Halted due to Shapella Upgrade

On 12-Apr, some of the nodes noticed an apparent uptick in ETH block re-organizations following the Shappela upgrade. Upon receiving 3 confirmations, Admin Mimir backed up the recommendation of nodes and paused the ETH chain.

Chain was unpaused on 16-Apr after version v1.108.1 was released.

3. THORChain Global Halt Due to Potential Dependency Vulnerability

Node churning was halted since last month, pending patching of this TSS vulnerability.

On 19-Apr, trading was halted for the backward incompatible v1.108.2 upgrade to patch the vulnerability. However, some consensus issue was found, necessitating v1.108.3 to be launched.

On 20-Apr, v1.108.3 was updated, and churn was re-enabled on 21-Apr.

References: https://medium.com/@iofinnet/security-disclosure-for-ecdsa-and-eddsa-threshold-signature-schemes-4e969af7155b

4. Node Churn Delayed to Save Savers Deposit due to LockTime Setting

On 24-Apr, it was discovered that some users were following Savers Memoless Deposit instructions, but with LockTime enabled in their BTC transaction, which caused THORChain to ignore their deposits. Nodes quickly indicated to delay churn, so that patch v1.109 can be adopted to resolve this.

5. BNB Beacon Chain Halted

On 25-Apr, multiple nodes faced crashloop for BNB chain. BNB chain trading was halted for nodes to update their chain daemons. Trading was re-enabled less than a day later.

6. Unizen Integration Go-live

https://twitter.com/thorchain/status/1650936814243291148

7. Feature Teaser: Streaming Swaps

https://twitter.com/THORChain/status/1650975148726702081

8. ADR 007 — Increase Fund Migration & Churn Interval

There were previous cases with integrated wallets/frontends where funds were sent to retired vaults, thus losing the funds. This change seeks to lengthen the vaults retiring period from a few hours to seven days, so as to reduce the likelihood of such occurrences. Node churning frequency would have to be correspondingly lengthened as well.

https://gitlab.com/thorchain/thornode/-/blob/develop/docs/architecture/adr-007-increase-fund-migration-and-churn-interval.md

On 26-Apr, this ADR was withdrawn. An alternative approach will be pursued, to make “best efforts” to refund transactions sent to inactive vaults: https://gitlab.com/thorchain/thornode/-/merge_requests/2869

9. ADR 008 — Dynamic Outbound Fee Multiplier

The current 3x multiplier for outbound fees can get expensive, especially for Ethereum and Bitcoin outbounds. This change seeks to reduce the multiplier to enable cheaper fees, but with the drawback of lower earnings for Reserve.

On 27-Apr, this ADR was put to node voting via the VOTEDOFM mimr.

https://gitlab.com/thorchain/thornode/-/blob/develop/docs/architecture/adr-008-implement-dynamic-outbound-fee-multiplier.md

10. ADR 009 — Reserve Income and Fee Overhaul

ADR 008 if adopted will cause Reserve income to be reduced. This ADR discusses various ways to supplement Reserve income.

https://gitlab.com/thorchain/thornode/-/blob/develop/docs/architecture/adr-009-reserve-income-fee-overhaul

Feel free to hop into the TC University Discord to chat about this, or any other THORChain questions that you may have.

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