Author: Marco González

Editor: Randall Roland

The EOS Node Operator Roundtable on December 14 focused on network congestion issues occurring on the WAX blockchain. Video breakdown is as follows:

The EOS Node Operator Roundtable provides critical information for keeping nodes running, as well as for Leap upgrades. This second summary/introduction of the new weekly format re-focuses away from the launching of Leap and onto node operators.

Each week, the EOS Node Operators Roundtable meets to discuss status updates and technical discussions focused on maintenance and innovation. The format isn’t set in stone with a few previous meetings focused on presentations and calls to action.

Participation is generally encouraged. Weekly attendees are listed in the notes taken by EOS Nation. Meetings begin with a reminder of the EOS Network’s declaration of independence as a community-run blockchain ever since the Leap v3.1 consensus upgrade.

Several mainstream and crypto news outlets recently published articles covering EOS development. Financial interests include the city of Busan (South Korea), a VC partnership, Binance integration of USDT (on EOS), and others. Specific network interest includes B1’s private application of Voice, as well as the public networks of Telos and WAX. Taken together, these factors demonstrate a wealth of opportunity on EOS and the growing interest (i.e. in the weekly Node Operator Roundtable).

The new meeting format coincides with the influx of interest in the EOS Network. Discussions still consider Antelope Leap development. However, it’s been found that catering to node operators improves the value of the weekly meetings. The new format better disseminates information for those most likely to take action, as well as help mitigate problems.

Part 1 of this 2-part introduction continues the examination of community sentiment following EOS Independence. Here’s a quick overview of the most important topics discussed over those 11 weeks:

The meeting on December 14 will be the last one until after the holiday break. Updates progressed as expected except for the WAX (congestion) issue. Not surprisingly, WAX dominated the discussion. Here’s a quick overview of the updates introduced in the video breakdown:

CDT (Contract Developer Toolkit) needs to precede the DUNE (Docker Utilities for Node Execution) release. Both are confidently ready for release before the holiday break. With updates well in hand, the group tackled WAX congestion issues.

The WAX blockchain has been experiencing an extraordinary number of failed transactions. The core of the issue seems to be an inappropriate incentivization for pushing transactions. The result was an overflow that led to missed/empty blocks and the inevitable expired transactions.

Several solutions were explored to alter Leap. Solutions deemed less than optimal include:

Other solutions not immediately dismissed were:

The group agreed that WAX node operators wishing to avoid network congestion should upgrade to Leap 3.2, as well as have subjective billing activated for all nodes. Future opportunities foreseen include a broad discussion on the resource model and if failed transactions should be billed.

Progress (or at least a temporary protocol) appears to have been made regarding the WAX network congestion issues. Additional node-level prospects not mentioned in this summary can be found on EOS Nation GitHub (week 12) under the ‘low-hanging fruit’ section.

Before breaking for the new year, the group proposed items for consideration. Most of the focus was on how resources are handled. Feedback (non-public) is sought for potential changes to the resource model (check EOS Nation GitHub for personnel assignments). Given the congestion issues experienced on WAX, it was proposed that the group should give some thought to the changes involving the broader Antelope resource model.

The EOS ecosystem continues to aggressively pursue innovation. Good enough is never a point of satisfaction for the community since EOS found its independence.

At the time of this writing, Mandel (Leap) 3.2.0 is considered 95% complete with 4 open and 77 closed items.