The privacy coin Dash faced unexpected challenges during the activation of its v19 hard fork, leading to a significant disruption in the blockchain. Samuel Westrich, the chief technical officer, tweeted about the issue on May 21, and approximately 13 hours later, developers released a fix in the form of v19.1.0.
During the downtime, Dash developers cautioned that blocks and transactions on the network without ChainLocks and InstantSend locks should not be assumed to have true finality. These features, unique to Dash, serve as security measures.
As a result of the blockchain issues, Binance temporarily suspended the distribution of Dash mining rewards until the situation was resolved.
Originally announced on April 10, the v19 update had the objective of bolstering security through the integration of BLS signatures, as well as introducing high-performance master node implementation and wallet enhancements. These changes were intended to prepare for the launch of Dash Platform on the mainnet.
According to the description of the v19.1.0 release, the upgrade will address bugs, while the release of v19.0.0 is delayed until June 14. The developers stressed the importance of an adequate upgrade of masternodes and miners to address the chain stall problem. Additionally, they advised users to remain vigilant about the known issues specified in the release announcement, as a reindex might be necessary.
As of now, according to a Dash blockchain explorer, the last processed Dash block occurred approximately 16 hours ago.
It’s worth noting that Dash’s previous v18 update, implemented in September 2022 and later upgraded in January, faced challenges when an attempted hack resulted in some masternodes going offline. The chain was halted due to the release and subsequent withdrawal of Dash Core v18.2.0.
Dash Core serves as the underlying network for the Dash privacy coin, which originally branched off from Litecoin in 2014. During April, the United States Securities and Exchange Commission asserted in its complaint against Bittrex that Dash coin should be classified as a security.
