Calling All Cosmos Hub Validators — The Vega Upgrade Is Here!
As the Cosmos ecosystem continues to expand, we’re making important progress on roadmap 2.0 for the Cosmos Hub. The Vega upgrade is here and we need all validators and node operators to join in the testing process.
The testnet represents a snapshot of the current Cosmos Hub with key modifications to ensure Vega’s stable release, including delegating the majority of the voting power to nodes controlled by the Cosmos Hub team.
What’s the Vega Upgrade?
Full details of the Vega upgrade can be found here, but essentially, the upgrade includes various versioning updates to ensure the security of the core components that the Cosmos Hub relies on, like Cosmos SDK, Tendermint Core, and IBC. The updates will also serve to avoid consensus errors, and improve efficiency through features like fee and voting delegation. The Vega upgrade is essential to enhance the performance of the Cosmos Hub and ensure that future upgrades occur seamlessly.
Vega is the second major upgrade in the Cosmos Hub roadmap 2.0. The Delta upgrade, completed in July 2021, brought the Gravity DEX protocol to the Cosmos Hub, enabling cross-chain token swaps and driving liquidity, among its many other benefits.
The Vega upgrade brings two new modules to the Cosmos SDK, therefore to the Cosmos Hub: the Fee grant module that will allow paying fees on behalf of another account, and the Authz module, which will provide governance functions to execute transactions on behalf of another account. Other additions include improved versioning of both IBC and Tendermint Core and adding the IBC router to the Hub, as per governance proposal 56, proposed by StrangeLove Ventures.
Cosmos Hub validators: Join the Vega Testnet
On the Vega testnet (full details of how to join can be found here), you can choose to either re-use your current keys to participate or request new token allocations that can be self-delegated to a new validator operator key. Please request tokens in the #validators-verified channel of the Cosmos Developer Discord and use Cosmovisor to automate the update with the auto-download feature so that the upgrade happens completely automatically. Also, please use this channel to post any further questions you may have.
For more in-depth details on the Vega upgrade, be sure to check out Cosmos Hub Lead, Billy Rennekamp’s, article here.
