Base node update

Good news, everyone!

Version 0.3.0 of the base node code has been tagged

We've merged in some changes to the base node codebase that will improve network stability and resilience as well as making some changes to the DB structure needed to support pruned mode. There will be an announcement when new binaries for this version are live and it will require everyone running a base node to re-sync from the genesis block. The code base has been tagged with version 0.3.0.

There will be more details with that release, but essentially all you'll need to do is delete the ~/.tari/rincewind/db and ~/.tari/rincewind/peer_db folders.

Note: If someone wants to tackle the open issue to do DB migration instead of requiring a full sync from scratch, please join the conversation there.

Another Note: These are not consensus breaking changes, so there's no need to delete your wallets. Fake testnet funds should be SAFU.

Taribot running low

The testnet faucet, which is what Taribot uses to give new Aurora installers their first batch of Tari has totally run dry! This means that there have been at least 2,000 individual installs of the Aurora app in the last month. Some folks have repeatedly installed the app but it's still nevertheless a pleasant surprise to have this much activity on the wallets in such a short period of time.

The good news is that we've added a new batch of UTXOs to the faucet to allow newcomers to continue to receive some tXTR and play with the wallet. The amount you'll receive now will be 2,000 tXTR rather than 5,000.

In other news

• Pruned mode for base nodes is in the early testing phase - woohoo!
• Several behind-the-scenes improvements to the wallet communication code have been merged.
• Work on the wallet backup feature is continuing.
• If you've been watching the block explorer repos, you'll notice lots of activity there too. If you're a front-end dev and want to chip in, look for a "Good first issue" on Github.