Solana Tech Roundup
This past week Solana features have gotten a lot of attention. You can now follow the progress of features using Github. Transaction-wide compute cap feature is expected to be activated on Devnet this week. You'll be able to test programs using up to 1.4 million compute once activated.
Upcoming Change Highlight
Token-list update
The token-list is at end of life and is being deprecated soon. The new way is centered around using Metaplex's fungible token standard.
With this new metadata standard, you can create a token and add metadata in mere minutes. Make sure you check out the token creator resource to understand how to add metadata to tokens in the future.
Commit Highlights
Security.txt on programs can greatly help bug bounty hunters and white hats submit exploits to developers
Transaction V2 is likely coming in 1.10, and we now have code examples of how to use them
List of Changes
March 25
- Update web3.js tests to work with latest test validator
- Forward transactions using QUIC
- Add SlotStats Metrics
- Used to track whether or not a slot is dead or rooted
- [Get slots that were once roots](github.com/solana-labs/solana/pull/23919]
- Used during snapshots
March 26
- Autofocus searchbar on visit for the explorer
- Separate full and incremental snapshot archival metrics
- Add getBlockProduction call to web3.js
March 29
- Check number of instruction accounts for all built in programs except the transaction lookup table
- This is to help assert only required accounts are being provided during runtime
March 30
- Add metric to measure time between block store and PoH
- This is useful to know how long it takes to receive shreds from a block producer
- In depth durable nonce documentation
March 31
- Use Rent Sysvar for SplitStake instruction
- Rent was hardcoded previously and would be broken with upcoming rent changes
- Add ability to have security.txt on programs in the explorer
- Cool feature that will allow program devs to create a PDA with contact information about exploits found. Check here for an example.
- Rust SDK support for V2 transactions
- Added QUIC to thin client