On May 20th Phantasma announced The Next Evolution, a comprehensive set of upgrades poised to catapult Phantasma forward, complete with full dual audits by the renowned security companies Hacken and Vaultes.

A comprehensive set of upgrades poised to catapult Phantasma forward, complete with full dual audits by the renowned security companies Hacken and Vaultes

In the four weeks that have passed since the announcement, our developer team has been charging ahead completing preparations for the start of the audits, finishing up mountains of refactoring that have now been merged to the master branch of the upgraded code repository. Alongside this, internal auditing has already been ongoing using highly capable, contracted resources.

The private Github repository containing the full, upgraded codebase has been submitted to both Hacken and Vaultes along with full instructions for deploying their own testnet, and both will be going through the code with fine-tooth combs and trying their best to break and exploit it.

We are happy to share that Hacken has already started their auditing process in close communication and collaboration with our team and core chain developers who will focus on resolving any issues found “as we go” with running feedback and reporting. Vaultes will be starting their auditing process in a few weeks to provide an “auditing the audit” effect, augmenting the cumulative security effect of the audits.

We are happy to share that Hacken has already started their auditing process in close communication and collaboration with our team and core chain developers

In addition to the auditing of the code itself, our processes will be audited to ensure maximum efficiency and security throughout the organization. This will ensure that we stay up to date and consistent with best practices as we all grow together.

The Chain Evolution

The new testnet is running, and our auditing partners are able to easily deploy their own four node testnets locally to torment and break it as best they can.

  • After finishing the main development cycle of the Phantasma blockchain it became evident that our cryptographic code needed unification. During the fast paced development of Phantasma blockchain, a substantial number of different cryptographic algorithms and tools were implemented, making our codebase quite complex and challenging to audit.
  • To improve transparency and to lower the barrier for auditors, we decided to revamp the cryptographic code, solidifying it around single crypto provider (Bouncy Castle), which is known as a secure and fast cryptographic library. We believe that we have reached our goal of making Phantasma’s cryptographic code as simple and transparent as possible to simplify maintenance and future development.

We believe that we have reached our goal of making Phantasma’s cryptographic code as simple and transparent as possible to simplify maintenance and future development

Snippets from the unification of the Phantasma blockchain cryptography

  • The Phantasma codebase has undergone a series of protocol upgrades since our mainnet launched in October 2019, and each protocol upgrade has required protocol version checks to ensure that functionality written for the previous iterations of the codebase would be executed properly. All such dependencies have been removed, and the new codebase allows all functionality to be executed without special treatment, removing technical debt and complexities.

The new codebase allows all functionality to be executed without special treatment, removing technical debt and complexities

One of many commits focused on removing the need for “special treatment” when executing code
  • In a fast evolving codebase the frequent changes and upgrades will invariably incur so-called technical debt, which over time complicates maintenance and future upgrades due to legacy dependencies, remnants of deprecated code and “early quirks”. Massive time and effort has been focused on removing unnecessary dependencies, pruning away legacy code and streamlining the entire architecture of the codebase to minimize technical debt and ensuring smooth maintenance and upgradability going forward.

Massive time and effort has been focused on removing unnecessary dependencies, pruning away legacy code and streamlining the entire architecture of the codebase

Pruning and streamlining the codebase and architecture ensures easy maintenance and upgradability
  • Decentralizing the operation of the Phantasma mainnet has always been and remains a very high priority. To achieve this goal, the new codebase will ensure smooth addition of new validators through smart contract calls coupled with on-chain governance voting. The process of decentralization is expected to start some months after the upgrade has been implemented, with a gradual expansion of the number of validators validating blocks.

The process of decentralization is expected to start some months after the upgrade has been implemented

Fresh, Fast and Feature Rich Blockchain Explorer

The current blockchain explorer is functional, but limited in features and resource hungry — in simple terms, somewhat “clunky”. For this reason a dedicated team of developers have been working for months building a new, fast and feature rich explorer.

  • On the backend, the new explorer collects and stores massive amounts of data locally, enabling fast responses, minimizing load on the chain and providing a treasure trove of information for running data analytics to power ecosystem growth strategies. Being not just easier to maintain, the new explorer is more scalable and its architecture makes it easy to add new features. On top of this, it fully supports NFT exploration. The explorer provides data via REST API, and we plan to allow access to this treasure trove of information for partners and developers.

The new explorer collects and stores massive amounts of data locally, enabling fast responses, minimizing load on the chain and providing a treasure trove of information for running data analytics to power ecosystem growth strategies

  • One notable new feature coming with the new explorer is easy exports of your wallet transaction history, simplifying the process for our users when filing their tax returns.
Modern, smooth and visually pleasing new GUI
  • The frontend for the explorer has been rebuilt from scratch to provide a smoother and more intuitive user experience, visually pleasing and powerful. With a fresh design, a new and responsive UI for desktop and mobile, implementation of dark mode and themes, localization, wallet downloads and advanced filters among other features, the new Phantasma explorer takes the user experience to another level.

The frontend for the explorer has been rebuilt from scratch to provide a smoother and more intuitive user experience, visually pleasing and powerful

Powerful, fast, and feature rich Explorer — with a backend loaded with all the data you can imagine

The new explorer is close to being finished and guaranteed to be launch ready when the Phantasma mainnet exits read-only mode after completion of audits and implementation of the chain upgrades.

New, Slick and Platform Differentiated Wallets

Ecto will remain as our powerful browser extension wallet available for all Chromium based browsers to make the transition from EVM based chains smooth and familiar for the millions of users who are most comfortable with Metamask and Metamask like wallets.

Poltergeist has been our go-to standalone wallet for desktop and mobile users. Initially it was created as an easy to use, retro themed starter wallet going live with our mainnet launch. Based on an older version of Unity and with a common interface for both desktop and mobile users, it does however have limited upgradability and flexibility when it comes to design changes and adding new functionality.

For this reason a separate developer team has dedicated months to building completely new wallets from scratch with separate graphical user interfaces tailor-made for desktop and mobile respectively.

A taste of the mobile wallet GUI – coming soon to an app store near you
  • Dedicated desktop and mobile GUIs allow for frontend adaptations to their respective platforms, providing an optimized user experience.
  • Both the desktop and the mobile wallet version share a common backend / business logic, minimizing developer work as functionality is added going forward.
  • A professional design team was contracted to produce the upgradable GUI, ensuring a slick, attractive design that makes the wallets not just powerful, but visually pleasing and fun to use.

A separate developer team has dedicated months to building completely new wallets from scratch with separate graphical user interfaces tailor-made for desktop and mobile respectively

Say hi to the new desktop wallet – set for release alongside the major Phantasma mainnet upgrade

The business logic shared by the wallets is close to complete, and both desktop and mobile wallets are confirmed to go live when the chain upgrades have been implemented.

DEX development

The framework for the Phantasma DEX and significant parts of the initial functionality have been coded, including the backend mathematics powering user trades. A simple and intuitive Uniswap / PancakeSwap like frontend has been built, and will serve as the interface for ongoing testing.

Early stage DEX GUI familiar to all Uniswap / PancakeSwap users

  • Among functionality already integrated with the frontend is single pool trading, pool creations and adding liquidity, viewing pools and viewing user liquidity for pools.
  • The DEX code is currently being connected to the upgraded codebase while additional connections between frontend and backend mechanics are being built for functionality like: Trades routed across multiple pools — liquidity removal — topping up liquidity in pools where a user already provides liquidity — trading volumes over time.

The framework for the Phantasma DEX and significant parts of the initial functionality has been coded, including the backend mathematics powering user trades

Snippets of the DEX code — note the Phantasma Smart NFT upgradable LP tokens
  • The DEX will make use of Phantasma’s Smart NFTs as LP tokens representing user liquidity, similar to Uniswap V3. However unlike the dozens of liquidity NFTs you can receive by adding new liquidity to Uniswap pools, the LP Smart NFTs simply evolve to include the user’s freshly added liquidity

Charging Forward

As we power through this challenging but incredibly exciting period of Phantasma’s journey we are committed to keeping both the community and our valuable ecosystem dApp partners up to date about the progress being made. From our recent dApp partner meetings we know that there is a multitude of powerful releases being prepared — so prepare for a fun and engaging H2 2022!

With love and respect,

Your Phantasma Team

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