Overwinter is the first update for the Zcash network in 2018 and it will be introduced soon.
The announcement was made on the official blog of the platform. The goal of the update is to make the protocol more secure and avoid setbacks before activating new versions in all the nodes in the network.
Overwinter is trying to establish a stable base for the activation of Zcash Sapling at the end of this year. It presents the most important update for the blockchain platform in 2018. It will bring new characteristics such as transaction expiration at certain blockheight, protection against replay attacks, transaction performance improvements, better transparency and new consensus rules.
The activation of Overwinter is scheduled for June 25th at the blockheight 207,500 of the main network. This update will not create a bifurcation in the Zcash network, nor a new cryptocurrency.
To avoid any setbacks, the Zcash team invited external developers from the blockchain community to revise the code and offer technical support at the moment of the activation of Overwinter and Sapling.
However, the administrators of Zcash recommended the users to make security copies of their wallets to avoid any inconvenience and they also assured an emergency update would be activated if a vulnerability of any type appears during the process.
The platform also announced the launch of the Zcashd 1.0.15 network for this month. This version will be compatible with the Overwinter update and will allow transaction formats v3, as well as expiration setting of up to 20 blocks and blockchain reorganization limit every 100 blocks.
The most recent version of Zcash will contain new consensus rules from Overwinter. Zcashd 1.0.15 will be launched in the test network with the block 207,500. If it does not come out as expected, it is presumed the platform would be activated in the regtest mode. The developers point out that this version is not very different from the previous ones and would behave just like the others.
Besides the launch of the version 1.0.15, the team behind Zcash also made other adjustments in the network. The developers increased the memory of UTXO to 450 MiB, added a new mempool logic and other improvements.
All these new updates follow the ambitious plan for the growth of the Zcash platform on the cryptocurrency market.
