Audit completion is getting closer

The team has collaborated closely with Hacken to complete the full audit and testing of the entire upgraded Phantasma codebase. All issues currently raised by Hacken have been handled by our developer team, with the appropriate fixes already implemented and being tested on our testnet to ensure production readiness.

As the community will be aware of from recent discussions, it will take a bit more time before we have the final report in hand and Phantasma can resume normal operations. The reason for this is that Hacken, accounting for the ever changing and developing cybersecurity landscape, has asked for some more weeks to run additional tests to ensure that Phantasma is protected against the most recent cybersecurity threats. Phantasma appreciates Hacken’s dedication to security and considers their request to benefit both the blockchain and the community of token holders.

“#web3 is rapidly changing, and cyberthreats don’t lag behind. To ensure that Phantasma is protected from the most recent emerging threats, we kindly ask you to allow a few more weeks of additional testing before we issue the final audit report” – Client Relations at Hacken

Completing the launch puzzle

As made clear in our initial announcement detailing the major chain upgrade and audit, Phantasma is committed to becoming a decentralized blockchain owned by the community. Before this upgrade to the code, the blockchain was not ready to be decentralized due to the lack of a long-term consensus mechanism which would allow for distributed validators to effectively and securely govern the network at scale. 

The research and process of rebuilding the consensus layer started early 2021. After assessing multiple different options, Phantasma chose to integrate the battle tested and trusted Tendermint consensus while preserving the full scope of Phantasma’s advanced functionality including Smart NFTs. Transactions will thus be executed through the Phantasma virtual machine handling our transaction logic before being validated by the Tendermint consensus layer. 

When the chain resumes transactions following successful completion of Hacken’s audit, it will go live with a comprehensive consensus mechanism built for scalability and community governance along with four initial distributed validator nodes. We will then conduct testing of the network and chain upgrade through Q4 before adding additional nodes in Q1 2023. 

The resources required to complete this final phase before decentralization is estimated to be approximately 30 developer hours of coding and 60 developer hours of testing on our devnet before moving to the final testing phase on the public testnet with additional external node operators. Using a proven consensus mechanism able to handle hundreds of concurrent validator nodes and implementation of our governance module will enable the community of staking token holders to choose the most reliable validators for the chain. Of note, any validator found not to be performing or acting against the best interests of the ecosystem can be voted out by a supermajority. 

Additionally, the new explorer is ready for launch. In the coming days we plan to make the current testnet based on the upgraded code public with the new blockchain explorer connected, allowing everyone to have a look and play around with the new functionality prior to resuming normal operations.

At the same time, we are working on the release of the completed new wallets to allow our community to get a feel for the improved visuals and user experience that they offer.

Finally, Phantasma has been undergoing a restructuring and streamlining of its organization to prepare for scaling growth efforts. The new organization structure is currently still being finalized and will be announced as soon as this process has been completed. Upon the new organization being announced, Phantasma will hold an AMA to answer burning questions from the community about its future plans.

Phantasma Team