Dear NAV Community!
We are very glad to announce a long list of improvements coming in our next update to NAV Coin. Primarily our goal for this release is to deliver the BIP32 update for NAV Coin. If you don’t know what BIP32 is, you can read more about it here:
https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/ma ... .mediawiki
It’s quite complicated, but the short version is that apart from the benefits of BIP32 itself, it will mean our wallet is now compliant with the accepted wallet standards for remote reading of the NAV blockchain. This compliance allows us to then develop javascript based web wallets and mobile wallets which are fully qualified wallets. The wallets will be able to operate without needing to download the entire blockchain which can be impractical on devices with limited storage or low performance.
After a long and at times painstaking process of attempting to retrofit the BIP32 standard of Hierarchical Deterministic Wallets to the existing NAV Coin code base we recently changed direction towards a faster and frankly better solution.
As a team we decided the best way forward was to rebase NAV Coin from a more recent fork of the Bitcoin Core which includes the BIP32 Updates and as an added bonus we also get a long list of all the other updates which Bitcoin has implemented since we last forked from them 2 years ago.
New Features in NAV 2.0
Here's the summary of some of the improvements we will be deploying:
BIP 32 - Hierarchical Deterministic Wallets
https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/ma ... .mediawiki
Capability to generate wallet addresses from a single private seed. This allows the user to re-generate key pairs from the seed if the wallet is lost. Backup frequency is reduced. Wallet generation methods are now compliant with web & mobile wallet standards.
BIP 38 - Passphrase-protected Private Key
https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/ma ... .mediawiki
Capability to encrypt and encode a passphrase protected private key. Typically intended for use on paper wallets and physical coins. Users will now be able to store their coins offline in secure cold storage.
BIP 100 - Floating block size hard limit
https://github.com/jgarzik/bip100/blob/ ... .mediawiki
Maximum block size is increased to 20MB with the maximum size for mined blocks set to 10MB. Block size is dynamic and changes in response to the volume of transactions. This future proofs the coin to be capable of handling all perceived future transaction volumes.
There are even more BIPs which will be included in the NAV 2.0 release. The full list of BIPs will be announced in the coming days when we verify their implementations.
On top of the added BIPs, the wallet we are deploying has some really nice extra features built into it:
Updated User Interface
As you can see, we’ve refreshed the branding in the wallet to match the websites branding. This branding will be rolled out through the rest of the wallet before launch. You can see the Anonymous Send feature on this send coins dialog window.
Bittrex Trading
The new wallet has the capability to connect to Bittrex with API Keys to trade NAV directly from within the wallet. You can see the current market orders, place & cancel orders as well as see your trade history.
Messages
This feature allows users to send encrypted private messages to other users by their wallet address. All communication is directly from wallet to wallet ensuring maximum privacy.
Block Explorer
The new wallet allows you to look up addresses and transactions from directly within the wallet.
The wallet also includes all the standard features you expect in a cryptocurrecy wallet (send, receive, backup, transaction history etc..)
Upcoming Features in NAV 2.1
With the new wallet deployed it means that we will now be able to finish off and release some of the work on our projects page which was previously blocked by the fact we weren’t able to use remote block chains and performance issues. This includes:
Mobile NAV Coin Wallet
As explained, we will now be able to deploy a mobile NAV wallet for both Android and IOS. Users to have a fully qualified wallet with the coins stored on your device. When we release our mobile wallet we will in a very small club of Proof of Stake coins with a mobile wallet. Then with phase 2 of the mobile wallet the NAV Coin dev team will unlocked a massive milestone; World’s first anonymous cryptocurrency transaction using a mobile phone!
Web based NAV Coin Wallet
Similar to the Mobile wallet, this allows us to build a fully qualified wallet that you can use through your web browser. You could then either run the code from your computer and / or we could integrate it into the NAV website for you to use.
Raspberry Pi Staking Unit
With the performance increases achieved by implementing all the BIP’s we’ve integrated by rebasing NAV Coin will allow us to successfully run the Raspberry Pi staking units. This is going to be a great system you can use to mine NAV very cheaply. Initially it will be a deployment which you run on your own Raspberry Pi and subsequently optionally purchasing a touch screen version from us.
Expect to see these updates released in the near future.
Action Plan for the Release
What does rebasing NAV Coin mean in practical terms?
It is quite a big transformation for NAV Coin to undertake. We did look at implementing the new code base and then refactoring the source to work with our existing blockchain. This process however could have easily taken another 2 months of development time or possibly more. We have a lot of great features planned for the next quarter and didn’t want to waste any more time by attempting the refactor to who knows what end. What we have decided to do instead is to create a new genesis block with all the updated configurations to work with the new source and start the NAV Coin blockchain again from Block Zero.
This means a couple of things will have to happen over the next few weeks to get everyone onto the new block chain.
Bittrex Coin Swap
We have contacted Bittrex Exchange to host the swap process.
We've always been working effectively with Bittrex and it's NAV markets always had the biggest volume. Based on that we believe that our Community also puts as much trust in their team as we do.
Bittrex has successfully performed many coin swaps in the past and has a very safe and reliable system in place to make sure that everything goes smoothly.
All coins will be swapped at a value of 1:1. You will still have exactly the same amount of NAV as you do now and there will still be the same total number of NAV as there are now, so your coin’s will retain the same value.
Swap period on Bittrex will take 2 weeks. We will begin the swap as soon as the new code base is tested to our satisfaction.
After that 2 week period time there will be no option to swap your coins using exchange and the old coins will no longer be valid on the exchanges.
We will offer additional 2 weeks of manual swap after that. To swap your coins manually you will need to contact Development Team directly and we can help you make the swap.
This procedure takes a lot of time and efforts, so please swap Your coins during first 2 weeks using Bittrex.
After the total 4 week swap period, the NAV Foundation will assume guardianship of any unclaimed coins. From then onwards users can contact us if they missed out on the swap and we will do our best to see they get their coins upgraded. Past that, the foundation will use the unswapped coins for covering the costs of new projects and server’s upkeep.
We are still confirming the details and timelines of the swap process with Bittrex and we will post another update when we can confirm the start date. That said, our goal is to initiate the coin swap within the next 2 weeks unless otherwise necessary.
Anonymous network maintenance
We will have to take the NAV Anonymous Network offline for maintenance so that we can begin to port the Anonymous Sending code to the new wallet and test it.
The NAV Anonymous Network will be offline from Thursday 14 March @ 9:00PM GMT until Sunday 17 March @ 9:00AM GMT or until otherwise notified.
Please keep that in mind in case you would need to use that function. We would advise not sending any coins through the anonymous network less than 15 minutes prior to the maintenance time.
Ongoing development
Anonymous Network Decentralisation
Decentralisation of the Anonymous Network is of course still in the pipeline. Once we have the coin swap sorted I will port all the work I have done previously to the new wallet and then resume working on the decentralisation project. It will only be a minor step sideways for the project, i will not have to discard my work and start over. I will update you on this project’s status and timeline on the other side of the coin swap.
As always - We would like to thank You for all Your support!
Please stay tuned & keep an eye on NAV Coin during this exciting time.
Best Regards!
- NAV Coin Development Team
Source: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic ... sg14532355
