The New and Improved Nervos Layer 2 - Godwoken has Arrived

Today Nervos launched a new and improved Nervos Layer 2 - Godwoken. Over the course of the next few weeks numerous dApps and projects will be launching on this 100% EVM-compatible Optimistic rollup. It’s an exciting time as the future of the Nervos ecosystem growth starts now!

L2 New Benefits

100% EVM-compatible Optimistic Roll-up

Now 100% EVM-compatible, the Nervos Layer 2 enables projects building across a variety of sectors, including DeFi, gaming, and NFTs, to easily create or quickly port their dApps.
Additionally, projects will benefit from instant interoperability to other chains, allowing them to organically expand their audiences—a vital part of growing a successful project.

Faster Transactions

Thanks to an improvement on the Web RPC Layer which increases the transaction capacity of the network, completing transactions on Nervos Layer 2 is faster than ever.
Interacting with dApps within the current and future ecosystem will now be a fluid, seamless experience for all users.

Open Access and Support

After a previously months-long whitelisting period, now all dApps and projects are free to build on the newly launched Layer 2 in a permissionless environment,
marking a significant development milestone as Nervos moves toward its long-term goal of true decentralization.

L2 dApps Launching

As a preview of dApps and projects that will be deploying on the new and improved Nervos Layer 2 - Godwoken, here is a short list of a FEW of them. In addition to those ones listed,
many more will be launching over the coming weeks and months so make sure to follow Nervos as we’ll be providing updates on new announcements and launches.

- Celer Network, a blockchain interoperability protocol enabling a one-click user experience for accessing tokens, DeFi, GameFi, NFTs, governance, and more across multiple chains.
- Multichain, an infrastructure developed for arbitrary cross-chain interactions in Web 3.0.
- Connext, a fully trust-minimized crosschain communication protocol to make blockchains composable.
- Band Protocol, a cross-chain data oracle platform that aggregates and connects real-world data and APIs to smart contracts.
- Poolz Finance, a decentralized cross-chain IDO platform built on top of Web 3.0 infrastructure to enable crypto projects to raise funds before listing.
- XP Network, a provider of multichain solutions for Web3, the creator economy, and the NFT industry.
- PulSarSwap, a next-gen TWAMM DEX.
- Candy Chain, a creator-first platform for smart contracts enabling users to easily deploy their NFT projects to multiple chains.
- Oblivion, a marketplace platform for finding, collecting and creating NFTs.

L2 Developer Support

To help support developers, Nervos recently funded the Build Club program which provides direct support to projects through marketing guidance,
Web3 educational resources and direct technical support to help bring new Web3 ideas to life on Nervos.
The program is for anyone who is passionate about creating Web3 projects with real-life applications and a desire to transform them into scalable businesses.
The Build Club is open to all and accepts members working on DeFi projects, Web3 tooling, ported dApps, utility projects, NFTs and more.

If you are a developer and would like to begin building on the new and improved Nervos Layer 2 - Godwoken just visit Start with Nervos to see all the key technical information you need to get started right away.
And if you require assistance and support please look into applying to join the Build Club program where you can  join one of the many teams developing on Nervos and get support on your journey to bring your idea to life!

Key Links

- Nervos Layer 2 Information: www.nervos.org/godwoken
- Developer Documentation: www.startwithnervos.com
- Godwoken Documentation: https://docs.godwoken.io
- Build Club Program: www.buildclub.xyz

The launch of the new and improved Nervos Layer 2 - Godwoken marks a major step for our current ecosystem and community.
This launch is the take-off point for the growth of our ecosystem and we look forward to seeing a wide range of dApps launching on the improved Layer 2 very soon!

Let’s Go!

Consensus – Recap

Consensus was one of the most highly anticipated crypto conferences in the US.
Estimated attendance was pinned at 17K+ which was more than double from the last in person Consensus conference.
So the Nervos team was excited about exhibiting and all the opportunities to meet new potential partners across the industry.



To prepare, we went through the process of getting our booth design created, giveaways produced,
T-Shirts printed and hand out cards with key information ready for our team to share.
After checking all the boxes and getting on flights to Austin, we were all set for the exhibition and non-stop conversations that we knew we had coming up.


In addition to presenting and sharing Nervos at Consensus we were glad to include the brand new established Build Club as part of our exhibition.
The Build Club program was created to provide support for developers building on the Nervos platform.
Key areas of support for this program include educational Web3 resources, marketing guidelines and technical assistance to help bring an idea to a real working reality.

With Day 1 of the exhibition set to kick off on June 10th we arrived to a massive hall filled with all the top names in the industry.
Teams were busy putting on the last touches to their booths in anticipation of the massive rush of thousands of people who registered to attend the conference.
As soon as the doors opened at 9:30AM the waves of attendees began to flow in.


Over the course of the first day our team met with many people across the industry. This included developers who were looking and evaluating platforms to build their dApp on to VCs interested in seeing if there were interesting projects being built on Nervos to students from universities with blockchain clubs.

As the day progressed so did the volume of people coming by our booth to learn more about Nervos.
While there were all levels of people, in terms of their knowledge or familiarity about Nervos,
it was a pleasant surprise to meet actual individuals who were CKB miners and active participants in the Nervos Community.
They were so happy to see our presence at Consensus and glad to know that we’re getting the Nervos name out there even more than we ever have before.


After the conclusion of Day 1 we held a team dinner at Dave & Busters to relax and recharge from an intense long day.
We were also delighted to invite some of the initial teams within the first cohort of Build Club to join us and spend time with our co-founders and key team members.
This was such a great opportunity for all of us to not only be together in person but spend time to really get to know each other.


With a bit of sleep after a long first day, we all reset and were ready for Day 2. Usually on day 2 there’s the expectation that because so many people came through on the first opening day that the next day will be a little bit more quiet. That wasn’t the case as the volume of traffic picked up even more.

Right across from our booth there was a book signing area where notable authors including Garry Kasparov, Laura Shin, Jimmy Song,
Neal Stephenson and more attracted a wrapped around line of attendees eagerly waiting to get a book signed and a picture taken.
Luckily for us, right after people got their book signed they were standing right in front of the Nervos booth where we grabbed many
of them to tell them more about the Nervos platform and our growing community.


During the day we even were able to talk to many of the UTXO alliance members who were in attendance and striked
up ideas on ways to create brand new partnerships to help support the alliance.
It’s random conversations like these that truly generate the seeds of powerful new partnerships and help solidify collaborations with 1 on 1 in person conversations.

At the end of the conference, we had exhausted all our giveaways, stickers, cards, and T-shirts.
Knowing that there are literally thousands of people proudly collecting our branded items and using them is a great feeling as we aim to get the Nervos name out there even more.


Additionally our team had numerous side meetings with brand new partners and projects who we’ll begin working with in the near future.
Between the conference, the meetings, evening events and networking opportunities,
Consensus was a great conference for us to get Nervos out there in front of thousands of people.
Just like every conference we go to we’ll continue to maximize exposure and bring in new people into the community!

Hashing it Out: The Highlights – Episode 2

In the May episode of ”Hashing it Out” Jordan and Eric covered a broad spectrum of updates that included reflections on the launch of the Nervos Layer 1 – Mirana Major Protocol Upgrade,
a discussion about the upcoming new features for the Nervos Layer 2 – Godwoken, and details on some of our biggest developer focused programs.

If you would like you can quickly read through the main highlights below or listen in to the entire discussion by clicking here.|

Nervos Layer 1 – Major Protocol Update Reflections
- The Major Protocol Upgrade was successfully launched on May 10th
- All partners were able to make the upgrade despite a few minor challenges that were overcome after the launch
- The Extensible block header is a great new addition, which will pave the way for the flyclient and which there will potentially be an early version beta to see
- The Short address format was eliminated which is already improving consistency across the dApps
- The new OmniLock script is a feature rich script with a lot of potential for building in the future

Nervos Layer 2 – Godwoken Testnet Launch
- Godwoken launched this month on Testnet and will be released on the Mainnet very soon
- This new version of the L2 is now 100% EVM compatible, which means that any tool used for developing dApps on Ethereum can also be used on Godwoken
- Previously there was a whitelisting process to launch new dApps but now that process has been eliminated in the new version of Godwoken, thereby providing a permissionless environment that enables any dApp to port/deploy
- The virtually gasless state of Godwoken will be attractive feature that will likely bring in a lot of new dApps into the ecosystem

Developer Programs – Web3champs
- This six week hackathon that just ended in May brought in around 1155 participants
- All winners of the hackathon have been paid and the Nervos branded SafePal hardware wallets are in the process of being sent to winners
- One project that stood out and that was a winner of a prize was Jio Swap which is a multi-chain stablecoin swap
- Jio Swap will now go on to join the Build Club program to continue building their dApp and eventually launching on the new Nervos Layer 2.

Developer Programs – BlockJam
- The first BlockJam virtual online conference and hackathon is going to take place on June 18
- There will be two days of speaker talks with leaders in Web3 and game dev sharing educational information on the powerful tools that blockchain provides
- For more info make sure to go to www.globalblockjam.com to sign up for this free online conference
- In addition to the conference there will also be a two week hackathon called GameJam where developers can win $50K+ in prizes

Community Questions and Answers

When will the whitelisting for projects on the Layer 2 end to make the process more decentralized?
- With the launch of the new Layer 2 – Godwoken, there will not be a whitelisting process anymore. We made the decision to do this to move towards our vision of creating a true public and permissionless blockchain.

What is Nervos doing to get more games on the platform?
- The business development department is always talking to teams in the gaming industry and the blockchain gaming world. I actually had the chance to participate in the playtest of a new Web3 game, and it went great, even though it was just an early version, new blockchain built games like this one show a lot of potential.

Is the Nervos Team going to attend any events in the near future?
- Our team will be at Consensus 2022, Austin, Texas in June. While Jordan and Eric won’t make it, we’ll have some great members of our team there including Matt,, Monica, Nathan, Terry and Jan.
The team is excited to have a booth there to meet many of you within the community. Make sure to stop by and say hi at Consensus if you’re there.
For this second episode of ”Hashing it Out” it was great to have Eric join and chat more about the latest developer relations updates in addition to hearing his viewpoints on some of the hottest Nervos community questions.
If you didn’t get a chance to hear the discussion, we encourage you to take a listen with the link here.
Make sure to be on the lookout for our next episode coming in at the end of June.

Major Protocol Upgrade – Diving Into CKB-VM V1
A technical overview of the new CKB-VM v1 features from the CKB2021 hard fork.



Introduction
In our previous article we gave a high-level overview of the CKB-VM v1 improvements and explained the basic process to activate and take advantage of this new virtual machine environment.
Next, we will dig a little deeper into the CKB-VM v1 improvements and explain in a more technical way, how these improvements operate and enhance the developer experience.

RISC-V B Extension
The RISC-V B extension is our first update to the instruction set that powers CKB-VM.
This instruction set extension is relatively small, but it proves concretely that this update path works both in theory and in practice.

The B extension covers the four major categories of bit manipulation: counting, extracting, inserting and swapping.
A total of 43 new instructions are introduced, all of which require only 1 cycle to be consumed.

In many cryptographic algorithms, bit operations are used such as clz (count leading zeros), circular shifts, etc.
The addition of the B extended instruction set allows us to increase the speed of such calculations by a factor of at least 10.
Let’s take clz as an example.
Traditionally, we use the following algorithm:

uint64_t clz(uint64_t n)
{
    if (n == 0) return 64;
    int c = 0;
    if (n <= 0x00000000FFFFFFFF) { c += 32; n <<= 32; };
    if (n <= 0x0000FFFFFFFFFFFF) { c += 16; n <<= 16; };
    if (n <= 0x00FFFFFFFFFFFFFF) { c += 8; n <<= 8; };
    if (n <= 0x0FFFFFFFFFFFFFFF) { c += 4; n <<= 4; };
    if (n <= 0x3FFFFFFFFFFFFFFF) { c += 2; n <<= 2; };
    if (n <= 0x7FFFFFFFFFFFFFFF) { c += 1; };
    return c;
}

The above code uses about 30 instructions. But with the B extension, we only need to spend one instruction to do it!

uint64_t clz(uint64_t n) {
    uint64_t rd;
    __asm__ (“clz %0, %1” : “=r”(rd) : “r”(n));
    return rd;
}

The B extension has been integrated into the latest version of gcc. To compile code with the b extension, you need to add the parameter -march=rv64imc_zba_zbb_zbc, like this:

riscv64-unknown-elf-gcc -o /tmp/main -march=rv64imc_zba_zbb_zbc main.c

Let’s look into a real world example showing that the B extension improves the performance of the Blake2b algorithm.
It simply replaces a function with a single B extension instruction. The original version is as follows:

static BLAKE2_INLINE uint64_t rotr64(const uint64_t w, const unsigned c) {
  return (w >> c) | (w << (64 – c));
}

Update it with B extension instructions:
static BLAKE2_INLINE uint64_t rotr64(const uint64_t w, const unsigned c) {
  uint64_t rd = 0;
  __asm__ (“ror %0, %1, %2” : “=r”(rd) : “r”(w), “r”(c));
  return rd;
}

With this small change, there is a 15% performance increase. Nervos uses the Blake2b algorithm often, meaning that this is a very significant improvement to our ecosystem.

Mainstream compilers like GCC, are currently not smart enough to convert source code into RISC-V B extension instructions automatically.
That means developers still need to use assembly code manually for performance tuning, such as was done above.
In the future compilers will have better support for the B extension, which means developers can see major performance increases simply by upgrading their compiler to a newer version.

An early benchmark provided by the community showed an immediate improvement of approximately 10% on a set of computationally intensive cryptographic algorithms.

We hope that by adding more extensions in the future, crypto primitives running in CKB-VM will gain execution efficiency that is comparable to native execution.
These types of improvements will keep CKB-VM at the forefront of the industry,
and give cryptography developers and dApp developers more options and freedom in this highly specialized application where every bit of efficiency matters.

Macro-Operation Fusion (MOP)
Macro-Operation Fusion is a hardware optimization technique found in many modern computer micro architectures whereby a series of adjacent macro-operations are merged into a single macro-operation before or during decoding. Those instructions are later decoded into a single fused instruction.
If you are unfamiliar with MOP and would like to read more, you can find some helpful links here and here.

Since CKB-VM is an abstract layer of CPU/Memory hardware, MOP technology can be used just like it would in the equivalent hardware.
Here we will illustrate how CKB-VM can use MOP to fuse multiple instructions into a single instruction. Let’s first take an example of multiplication.
Assume we have to calculate the following 128-bit unsigned int value (result) in C:

uint64_t a = 0xFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF;
uint64_t b = 0xFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF;
uint128_t result = a * b;

The compiler can’t handle 128-bits integers in one single instruction. It then compiles them into several instructions which must contain the following RISC-V instructions:

mulhu
mul


The mulhu instruction can handle the higher 64-bits of result while the mul instruction handles the lower 64-bits.
The idea behind MOP is to combine the RISC-V instructions mulhu/mul into one fused instruction.
CKB-VM can implement this fused instruction in assembly. For example, on x86-64, it is implemented by following two x86-64 instructions:

movq
imulq

The main benefit of this is that cycles can be significantly reduced using MOP. Previously it consumed 10 (5 + 5) cycles for the mulhu/mul instructions.
After MOP is implemented, it only consumes 5 cycles total for the single fused instruction. This is a 100% performance gain.

Here is a list of all the MOP instructions included in CKB-VM v1. The multiplication operations noted are critical to cryptography algorithms.
MOP can provide a massive performance increase to all cryptography algorithms running on CKB-VM.
We hand-optimized bls12-381 and reduced verification from 76.6M cycles to 51.8M cycles.
Here is one implementation of the work that was done.
You will see a lot of instances of the instructions mulhu/mul appearing adjacently. This optimization allows MOP to be utilized.

Unfortunately, GCC and other compilers aren’t optimised for the RISC-V MOP instructions yet.
This means that developers still need to manually arrange assembly code to optimise for MOP today.
However, we know that this will improve in the future as compilers begin to add support.

Exec Syscall
The exec syscall is inspired by the Linux exec syscall. The exec syscall runs executable code that is contained within the data area of a specific cell. This executable is run in the same context as the currently running virtual machine, and it replaces the previously running executable that made the call.
The amount of cycles used does not change, but the code, registers, and memory of the VM are replaced by those of the new program.

The exec syscall is very helpful to reuse code in scripts. Let’s use a lock script as an example.
Almost every lock script shares a common process of validating one or more cryptographic signatures.
We can build a single common script that only does signature validation, including SECP256K1, RSA, Schnorr, etc. This script will rarely require changes.

Developers that are creating lock scripts can simplify their process by using the exec syscall to execute the aforementioned script which contains signature validation.
This allows them to remove the signature validation code from their script, removing the redundancy and allowing them to focus more exclusively on the logic specific to their dapp.

This pull request demonstrates how this can be done in practice.
We encourage developers to  continue using this pattern to make scripts more composable and shareable.

ARM64 Assembly Implementation
CKB-VM already has a highly efficient implementation of RISC-V specifications on x86-64, and with the CKB2021 hard fork, we are introducing an ARM64 assembly implementation.
This feature gives CKB-VM a huge performance boost on ARM64 platforms.
ARM64 is a CPU architecture that is used on billions of devices, such as Apple and Android smartphones and tablets,
Raspberry Pi devices, Google Chrome laptops, and Apple’s newest line of M1 and M2 desktop and laptop computers.
Microsoft is also testing a version of Windows 11 that runs on ARM64.
We believe that the ARM64 architecture will continue to be more and more popular, and we are making sure that CKB-VM will keep up with the trend.

Other Improvements on CKB-VM
Several other improvements have also been made behind the scenes to CKB-VM. The first is lazy initialization during script execution in CKB-VM. Previously, when CKB-VM executes a script the first step is to initialize all memory to zero. If some of the memory is never used during execution, the unused memory remains reserved, which is not optimal.
Now when scripts execute the initialisation of memory is deferred.
The program memory is divided into multiple frames, and only when a frame is accessed for the first time does it reserve the block of memory and initialise it to all zeros.
The result of this is that small scripts that do not need large amounts of memory will begin execution faster and will require less memory during the duration of their execution.

Another improvement is the addition of “chaos mode”. In production use, all memory is always initialized to zero when first being used.
However, during testing and debugging, we can use chaos mode to initialize memory to random values instead of zero.
This technique creates randomized synthetic scenarios which can aid in finding certain bugs in scripts, such as the accessing of uninitialized memory.
This is a serious issue that can be very difficult to find under normal circumstances, but chaos mode can help identify the problem much faster.

Closing
There are no shortcuts to success when trailblazing a path and building new technology.
It takes a lot of work and painstaking effort to ensure that our technology remains at the leading edge.
By continually investing in improvements to our ecosystem’s foundation we are positioning the platform for the best possible trajectory and ensuring our success in the future.

Some of the updates that we have described may be deeper than many developers are interested in, but all developers and users will benefit.
It doesn’t matter if you’re a low-level developer on L1 or an EVM developer on L2.
It doesn’t matter if you’re a user of a native dApp on Nervos or a user on the far edges of one of our multi-chain ecosystem partners.
Even users that don’t realize the dApp they are using is powered by Nervos will benefit from the solid foundation and meticulous optimization that makes Nervos an outlier in the industry.

We are officially opening our Build Club Discord Server to Web3 Developers who are looking to get support with building and shipping projects! 🚀

If you are a Web3 builder, what does this mean for you?

- Marketing Campaign Support
- Priority Technical Support
- Grant Opportunities of different amounts
- Peer-to-Peer Builder Support
- VC & IDO favorable introductions
- Access to online lectures from key leaders in the Web3 space

If you are a Web3 builder and you would like to join our Discord Server to learn more, click here:

https://discord.com/invite/nyMEHBACR8

The Nervos Network Bulletin: May 2022

What Happened this Month?
May was a special month for Nervos as we welcomed the arrival of the Nervos Layer 1 – Major Protocol Upgrade,
launched our new Hashing it Out program, announced our upcoming BlockJam virtual global conference and much more.
Make sure to read through some of our biggest accomplishments for the month!



The Nervos Layer 1 – Major Protocol Upgrade has Arrived
On May 10th Major Protocol Upgrade arrived for the Nervos Layer 1. This was a major achievement that couldn’t have been done without the help and support of all our partners, the foundation and the entire community. The upgrade introduced numerous benefits for both developers and end users.

Read more here: Article



Hashing it out – Episode 01: Q&A
At the end of April, we launched our new Hashing it Out program. In case you missed it, catch the first episode here!

Listen here: YouTube



Twitter Spaces Recap: Jan Xie and The Nervos Layer 1 – Major Protocol Upgrade
After the Major Protocol Upgrade launched, Nervos’ Chief Architect Jan Xie came on to Twitter Spaces to discuss what this upgrade means to the Nervos community.
In case you’ve missed it, we have summarized the key points that Jan mentioned during the discussion.

Read more here: Article



Nervos Launches BlockJam
The Nervos Network announced an exciting new event called BlockJam:
A Virtual Conference for Game Developers Looking to Harness the Power of Blockchain which starts June 17th.

Read more here: Article



Nervos Layer 2 – Godwoken
We just announced that the new and improved Nervos Layer 2 – Godwoken is now live on the Aggron Testnet.
New features include 100% EVM compatibility, faster transaction speeds, and more.

Get started here: Link

Virtual Machine Improvements
Introduced with the Major Protocol Upgrade is the CKB-VM v1 virtual machine, which is now available on the Nervos Layer 1 Mainnet.
This new version of CKB-VM improves the performance of smart contract execution and adds several new features for developers to utilize when developing smart contracts.

These upgrades may increase the efficiency of both existing smart contracts and new smart contracts, and the new features being added widen the scope of what is possible on Nervos by improving the foundations of Layer 1.
The CKB-VM v0 virtual machine is still available for backward compatibility, and developers can now choose which version should be used for the execution of their smart contracts.

Key Features
RISC-V B Extension: An update to the RISC-V instruction set that improves the ability to do certain bit manipulations, which can result in increased performance, decreased code size, and decreased power consumption.
This will also allow for better performance of CKB-VM, particularly when running on x86_64 processors.

Macro-Op Fusion: An update to the RISC-V instruction set that allows for two or more simple instructions to be fused into a single more complex instruction that can be executed more efficiently.
Combined with the RISC-V B extension, this results in substantial improvements to the number of cycles used for certain operations. One example is dramatically improved support for BLS digital signatures, which are seeing increased adoption in the cryptocurrency industry.

Syscalls: Three new system calls have been added: VM Version, Current Cycles, and Exec. VM Version allows the smart contract to detect which VM environment it is being executed in.
Current Cycles allows the smart contract to view how many cycles have been consumed thus far during execution. Exec allows the currently executing smart contract to execute another smart contract, allowing for more modular code and the possibility of chained execution of smart contracts.

Address Format: Commonly known as “CKB2021 Addresses”, this new address format allows the VM version to be specified through the `hash type` value. Specifying the new `hash type` values for CKB-VM v1 is not possible in the previous address versions,
meaning only CKB-VM v0 can be targeted unless you are using the new address format.

Virtual Machine Version Targeting
Nervos Layer 1 provides both CKB-VM v0 and CKB-VM v1 for smart contract execution. This allows older smart contracts to remain fully backward compatible using CKB-VM v0, while new smart contracts can use CKB-VM v1.

It is recommended that all developers working with Layer 1 learn the basic concepts of how to target specific virtual machines so they can fully take advantage of the new features in CKB-VM v1, or revert to CKB-VM v0 for backward compatibility if needed.

The hash type value of a script is now used to specify matching criteria and the virtual machine which is targeted. Before the Major Protocol Upgrade, only hash type values “0” and “1” were available. Now a new value, “2”, is available.

Hash   Type   JSON Value   Match By   CKB-VM Version
  0      “data”       Data                   Hash               0
  1      “type”    Type Script             Hash               1
  2     “data1”       Data                   Hash                1

Hash Type 0: Smart contracts which rely on hash type “0” will continue to use CKB-VM v0. This is because a hash type of “0” implies that code matching is being done by the script code data hash, meaning a specific binary is being targetted for execution.
Existing smart contracts which were using hash type “0” will continue to utilize CKB-VM v0 and run exactly as they did before the Major Protocol Upgrade.

Hash Type 1: Smart contracts which rely on hash type “1” will use CKB-VM v1. This includes all smart contracts deployed before and after the Major Protocol Upgrade.
This is because a hash type of “1” implies that code matching is being done by the type script hash, which generally means the script code is upgradeable by the developer.
Because a specific binary is not being targeted and an upgrade path exists, developers are expected to update their code if needed since CKB-VM v1 is now being used for execution.

Closing
Nervos is committed to continual improvement and keeping Nervos’ smart contract platform at the leading edge of technology.
Not only do these updates improve our platform, but by keeping pace with the advances in RISC-V and Rust, our ecosystem will continue to benefit from their improvements while remaining as secure as possible.

These virtual machine changes affect the lowest levels of Nervos’ platform where they are largely invisible except to Layer 1 developers working on the foundations of the ecosystem.
Even though the average user may not perceive a difference right now, these updates will continue to give Nervos the edge in providing the best possible user experience in the future.

Hash Type 2: Smart contracts which rely on hash type “2” will use CKB-VM v1. This is because a hash type of “2” matches a specific binary similar to hash type “0”. Hash type “2” was not available before the Major Protocol Upgrade, so only new smart contracts being deployed will be able to use hash type “2” to target CKB-VM v1.

The Nervos Layer 1 – Major Protocol Upgrade with Chief Architect Jan Xie – Highlights

Nervos recently completed a Major Protocol Upgrade which brought about a bevvy of new improvements and features.
Known as ‘Mirana’, this upgrade to Layer 1 represents the next chapter in its history, which intends to make the base layer of the network more efficient and future-proof.

We invited Nervos’ Chief Architect Jan Xie to Twitter Spaces to discuss what this upgrade means to the Nervos community.
In this discussion, Jan shared his thoughts on the history leading up to the upgrade,
as well as the key features and improvements and what they will mean for both developers and users of Nervos.

Below we summarise the key points that Jan mentioned during the discussion on Twitter Spaces.

The History of Lina and Why the Upgrade?
In late 2019 Nervos launched ‘Lina’, the first iteration of Nervos’ Layer 1 blockchain.
This was a brand new base layer blockchain that would serve as the foundation of what would one day become a multi-layer ecosystem.

To accomplish this, Nervos blended many different aspects of Bitcoin and Ethereum together to create a platform that embraces the strong points of both.
This new approach was the first comprehensive extended UTXO blockchain in practice and it meant having to take on new challenges which no one had ever seen before.
There were many fine details that could not be anticipated.
We knew that changes would be necessary which is why we planned for upgrades to occur in the future, such as this most recent one.

In Nervos’ multi-layer approach, Layer 1 is used for the preservation of assets, and Layer 2 is used for scalability. However, this is a broad distinction.
Where exactly the line should be drawn between L1 and L2 is still an open question for the entire industry.
Through the feedback we received from dApp developers over the past two years we realized some areas where our design was too rigid.
We have redesigned and rebalanced these parts of the platform to better support the realistic needs of developers.
These improvements are included in this update.

Through this Major Protocol Upgrade, we have demonstrated with Mirana that we can improve the design of the platform continuously without breaking promises in the original positioning paper.
We will need continuous improvement going into the future.
It is only ongoing research combined with a bit of trial and error which will enable us to unlock the future potential of the platform.

How did Partners and Community Help the Major Protocol Upgrade?
Nervos is a project that is deeply committed to decentralization. Many projects claim decentralization, but there are vast differences in the approach and depth.
Nervos aims to maximize decentralization at every level, including technology, governance, and the community.

A Major Protocol Upgrade requires cooperation and coordination between all participants.
This is difficult because development teams, partners, and community members are under no obligation to comply.
We have to persuade all participants to support the upgrade, or it will not be successful.

For example, miners, mining pools, wallet providers, exchanges, and dApp developers all run full nodes.
In order for the network upgrade to succeed, they must upgrade their software in advance of the fork.
Users of the Neuron wallet are also running full nodes, meaning we needed to make all of them aware of the update and give them a reason on why they should upgrade.

Consent is an absolute requirement in a decentralised ecosystem since we cannot force participants to upgrade.
To our advantage, there was nothing contentious about this upgrade.
It was a benefit to all participants. A few teams were slow and missed some deadlines, but there was no resistance to adopting the upgrade.

We spent a lot of time making sure everyone in the community was aware of what was occurring and prepared materials to help ease the transition.
Thus, we were able to deliver as smooth of an experience as possible for everyone involved.

Features and benefits from the Major Protocol Upgrade?
RFC Process: Nervos’ RFC process is similar to an Ethereum EIP or Bitcoin BIP.
It is a way for the Nervos community to openly and transparently collaborate to improve Nervos.
Anyone is free to participate in ongoing discussions, or propose new directions.
This process is how many of the features in the Mirana upgrade were discussed and decided upon.

The New Address Format: Users will notice that some of the short addresses they were used to are now much longer,
but under the hood this new format enables additional features that are part of the Major Protocol Upgrade.
The format also consolidates all existing address formats into a single format that will need to be upgraded less frequently in the future.

Virtual Machine Versioning: One of the new key features in CKB-VM is the RISC-V B extension.
This enhancement gives CKB-VM a performance boost and makes operation more efficient.
The update also keeps CKB-VM up to date with the latest changes in the Rust ecosystem,
which allows Nervos developers to continue to take advantage of the innovation created there.

Extensible Block Header: A new extension field has been added to the block structure that can be used to store different types of data necessary for future features.
The first feature that will utilize this field is the upcoming flyclient; a super lightweight Nervos node that does not sacrifice any security,
but has much lower system requirements that makes it more suitable for casual users and mobile devices.

This Major Protocol Upgrade improves performance, but the primary benefits are more geared for developers building on Nervos.
Layer 1 is the foundation of the ecosystem, so these upgrades will benefit all layers and ultimately improve the user experience for all dApps in the future.

Closing
The Major Protocol Upgrade was successful and we have to give thanks to the hard work done by our development team, all our partners, and the community.
We believe these upgrades will pay many positive dividends in the coming years, and this couldn’t have been done without the full support of everyone.
These upgrades help to improve Nervos now and put us in an even better position for the future.
This enables us to continue improving our developer experience at the lowest level, which will lead to a better building environment for dApp developers,
and ultimately will yield the highest quality dApps and the best possible experience for all users in the ecosystem.

We’re excited to announce that Backbone Finance has joined the new Nervos Layer 2 - Godwoken testnet!

What is Backbone Finance?
Backbone Finance is a multichain stablecoin aggregator, optimizing yields and bringing it natively to the Nervos Ecosystem.
Users would beable to claim their rewards in $BACK, stablecoins, or $CKB.
Users staking their $BACK will also be able to receive a higher APY on their deposits.
Savings accounts and stablecoin vaults are not the superstars of decentralized finance,
however they are an excellent tool to onboard
real and longer-term users/participants in crypto.

You can find more on https://backbonefi.com

Nervos is excited to introduce our new ecosystem partner WalletGuard, a grant recipient part of BuildClub!

What is the function of WalletGuard?👇
It's an open-source Chrome extension that keeps users safe and has an allowlist of popular Web3 projects,
so you don't have to worry about getting phished—protecting users from phishing attacks.

What unique in WalletGuard?
Wallet Guard comes with a built-in whitelist for your favourite web3 apps such as Metamask, OpenSea, TradingView, Uniswap, and hundreds more,
so you always know when you are on a verified site.
This whitelist is also used to detect and block suspicious URLs from a variety of common phishing attack methods.

What about Privacy?
In Web 3.0 world privacy is a core of all users, we have many crypto wallets, extensions, projects and many of this are fake.
So WalletGuard keep us safe from this and does NOT collect or transmit any user or browsing data

Check it in Chrome: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/wallet-guard/pdgbckgdncnhihllonhnjbdoighgpimk
And look closer in GitHub: https://github.com/mindofmar/wallet-guard

Nervos Launches BlockJam: A Virtual Conference for Game Developers Looking to Harness the Power of Blockchain

The Nervos Network is excited to launch BlockJam, a 16-day online conference and hackathon starting June 17th,
to educate and excite traditional game developers about how blockchain can take their games to the next level.

There is over $50,000 up for grabs for developers who take part in this gaming-themed GameJam hackathon.
Additionally, with the help of our partners, we will be hosting talks and educational sessions from Web & Gaming experts.

Blockchain is already proving to be a powerful tool in adding an edge to the global gaming industry.
We hope to shine a brighter light on what this technology can do, especially on the Nervos Network.

Nervos is taking a particular interest in the gaming industry. We believe that our platform can be a destination
of choice for developers who want to improve their games, bolster the gaming community, change how game stores work and add new types of value creation.

What is BlockJam?
BlockJam 2022 is a global virtual conference and hackathon bringing game developers into the Web3 ecosystem.
This 16 day value-packed event will begin with talks and sessions from Web3 & gaming experts, followed by a traditional style GameJam hackathon, with a blockchain flavor!

BlockJam is here for devs to test their mettle and stand a chance to win part of the $50,000+ prize pool,
and for them to hear directly from industry leaders about how blockchain can improve the gaming space.

In association with our partners at Chainsafe and Filecoin, BlockJam participants will learn about ERC-1155,
the future of gameFi and Play to Earn, all while competing for big cash-value prizes.

Nervos is hosting this event because we are looking to grow the gaming segment of our expanding ecosystem.
As a blockchain platform, we are well-positioned to help gaming advance to the next level,
and we want to be part of the grassroots movement to meld gaming development with blockchain technology.

What to expect at BlockJam
BlockJam will begin with talks and sessions from leaders in the Web and Gaming space.
The GameJam competition will then kick-off and run for two weeks.
We will then close out the event with the results and a closing ceremony.

June 17 2022: Opening Sessions talk
June 18-19 2022: Talks and Sessions from Web & Gaming experts
June 20 – July 4 2022: GameJam
July 10 2022: Results Announcement & Closing Ceremony

Why look to Nervos and Blockchain for Games?
There are several ways blockchain can improve games, but to get a taste of what is possible,
we have outlined a few points that will be discussed further at BlockJam.

With blockchain technology built on Nervos, we can offer all the points outlined below, plus a lot more, to game developers.

Game Improvements
- Make a single-player game multiplayer asynchronously
- Provide alternate methods of sign-in accounts
- Rent in-game items to other players

In-Game Store
- Allow users to sell and trade in-game currency and items without the risk of fraud
- Create methods for players to sell purchased items after they are finished using them
- Export items from one game and import them into another game.

Game Community
- Allow early supporters to verifiable benefit from their community or monetary support.
- Allow for in-game governance through fair methods
- Reward core players over the loudest voices

Value Creation
- Create optional monetisation methods
- Generate income by collecting a small percent on all items sold and keep your game free to play (or not)!
- Allow users to trade, sell, buy or give accounts.

The registration for BlockJam 2022 is now open! Participate individually or as a team and compete with the best in the industry.

Sign up here!

The Nervos Layer 1 Major Protocol Upgrade has Arrived

At Nervos we’re excited to share that after much hard work with our many partners, the foundation and with the support of our community,
we have collectively launched a Major Protocol Upgrade to the Nervos Layer 1 which we call “Mirana”.

This is an exciting time, as many of the improvements that are now live have been in development for sometime and are extremely beneficial for all our partners.
Now developers who are working on building on our Layer 1 they will be able to build even better dApps with many improvements over our previous Layer 1 version.

Over the course of the next few weeks we’ll be going deeper into the exact details of the benefits of all the features launched with this upgrade.
But for now you can read through a brief overview of some of the biggest highlights from this launch which we’ll be covering and going deeper into soon.

Contributing to RFCs on Nervos Web3

The Nervos RFC is a standard that enables the community to participate, suggest and comment on improvements to the platform.
Without participation from our community it would be impossible for the platform to evolve and improve over time.
Hence the reason why RFCs have played a critical role in the development leading up to the Major Protocol Upgrade launch.
Many of the key feature improvements which you’ll read about below, were initiated and discussed first within individual Nervos RFCs.

Upgrade Protocol Address Changes
Improving the protocol address format is one of the key tasks to helping improve the Nervos L1 to enable it to be more future proof.
Previously with short addresses there was favorism for 3 different lock types which prevented some partners from not upgrading their libraries.
Now in order to ensure that all parties follow through on upgrades for improvements to the Nervos L1 this upgrade removes the favoritism to make sure all parties are upgrading.
Additionally this enables addresses to be more flexible and require less maintenance by developers in the future.

Virtual Machine Versioning
This part of the upgrade is arguably the largest and one of the most important parts of the upgrade and includes several major improvements
to the CKB-VM which is the virtual machine that executes smart contracts on Nervos. With this upgrade the CKB VM will support two key features,
RISC-V B extension and Marco-op fusion. Together both of these features will boost the CKB-VM performance and make crypto algorithms more
efficient on CKB-VM to allow for even more functionality to be built on top of the Nervos Layer 1.

Extensible Block Header
This feature lays the foundation for the future roll out of the flyclient which is a form of a light client.
What this means is that in the future you’ll be able to run a CKB node on practically any hardware device, something as simple as a phone or even Raspberry Pi.
Additionally this improvement will work without sacrificing any security while maintaining trustless modes of communication and validation.
This improvement lays the groundwork for flyclicent by providing additional block storage filed on Layer 1.

Cryptographic Friendly Instruction Sets
With new cryptography standards growing in popularity such as Boneh-Lynn-Shacham or BLS for short,
Nervos has now integrated this feature to enable better multi-signature security.
These new cryptographic instruction sets provide defense against index calculus attacks and at the same time allow for shorter signatures
than FDH signatures which improves the overall security for the Nervos Layer 1 and forms an even stronger foundation for the network.

All these features are significant improvements that help propel the latest “Mirana” version of the Nervos Layer 1 to new heights in performance.
We couldn’t be more happy to know that developers and partners who are working closely on our L1 will now be able to derive many
immediate and future benefits from this Major Protocol Upgrade.
This upgrade is key to enabling Nervos to grow at scale even faster and more securely well into the future.

Why Nervos Works: The Next Evolution

For the past few weeks, we have broken down the layered architecture of Nervos and discussed why it works for us,
and how having these layers lends itself to us building towards an internet-like experience.

But, in this final segment of the ‘Why Nervos Works’ series, we will be looking back at the words of our Chief Architect, Jan Xie.
He noted how Nervos, and the CKB blockchain, are an abstraction of Ethereum, just as Ethereum is an abstraction of Bitcoin.

This is an interesting concept, but one that underpins exactly what Nervos is striving to do with its layered approach and
multi-chain strategies to forge an even better blockchain platform.
In this article, we’ll do a quick recap of the very short history of the blockchain space and share with you how Nervos is positioned to help usher in the next blockchain evolution.

In the beginning…

Bitcoin was the original blockchain, and in its simple whitepaper, it set out to solve a problem with the financial system.
Bitcoin introduced the idea of being trustless through its consensus model,
removing the need for financial intermediaries and providing a basic framework for improving how we control money.

Ethereum built on this basic model but pushed it even further with the smart contract solutions,
which could remove any intermediaries in nearly any instance, adding a whole new world of flexibility and potential.

Forging a new path

Bitcoin set us on a revolutionary path to a more decentralized financial world. However, the lack of capability of the underlying technology required evolution.
Hence, Ethereum came along and provided a novel solution that continued to progress the evolution and capability of blockchain technology.

The reason for Ethereum’s success is that it solved thousands of problems systematically while others were trying to solve only one at a time.
Smart contracts were a huge evolution from what Bitcoin could do – moving value around in a decentralized peer-to-peer manner.

With smart contracts, Ethereum’s ability to be a ‘World computer’, lay the foundations of programmable blockchain,
and evolve to solve many different problems became a reality thanks to its abstraction from Bitcoin.

Just as the abstraction occurred from Bitcoin to Ethereum, there will likely be a next level abstraction as Jan explains:

“I would argue that a new abstraction is the hallmark of evolution and that the next-generation blockchain must be more abstract than its predecessor.
The Bitcoin to Ethereum leap was the first blockchain abstraction, and I believe it won’t be the last. As for how the post-Ethereum era might resemble, one should initially think about what can be abstracted further away from Ethereum.”

The next evolution

At Nervos, we believe we are on the path to the next evolution stage. Just as Ethereum managed to solve issues arising from Bitcoin’s limitation by abstraction out,
so Nervos is already showing solutions to Ethereum’s current scaling and state bloat concerns that have troubled even some of the most popular chains in the space.

Additionally, we believe in order to head toward a new global decentralized economy, we need a new vision of what an ideal blockchain should be like in the future. One with multiple permissionless blockchains, permissioned blockchains, and tools that enable the mass migration from Web2 to Web3.
All of these working together to create a universal internet-like public network – this is what the next evolution will look like.

Since launching Nervos, Jan and the rest of the team have been working towards creating this next evolutionary step.
The secure and decentralized CKB chain, with its flexible and future proof layer 2 architecture,
is inherently multi-chain and can be the foundation of a universal internet-like public network that will abstract away many of the complexities currently faced by new users.
This lays the foundation for a better experience by the next generation of users.

A better user experience

As we look at the post-Ethereum era, we have always believed that a better user experience will be vital in solidifying the next abstraction.
Established pain points are currently holding back a massive wave of mainstream blockchain adoption.

At Nervos, we have been working towards creating solutions to many of these problems and we aim to provide an internet-like experience for users.
We want Nervos to be the one single place that users go to, to use one wallet and still access multiple chains and the opportunities they present,
use dApps across multiple chains and basically have unfettered access to the entire blockchain ecosystem through Nervos.

Nervos Foundation Launches Support Program For Web3 dApp Builders

Nervos Network is excited to introduce the Nervos Build Club which is a brand new program that will bring together Web3 builders and provide them with the resources and peer-to-peer support they need to successfully launch their dApps.

Who can join the Build Club?
The program is for everyone passionate about creating Web3 projects with real-life applications and a desire to transform them into scalable businesses.

Nervos Build Club is accepting members wanting to work on DeFi projects, integrations, original projects, clones, utility projects, NFTs, and more.
Although every group’s needs will be different, we can meet all of them with our support and technology. Our program will help Web3 project builders with:

- Guided marketing support from the Foundation
- Priority technical support
- Access to online lectures from key leaders in the Web3 space
- Peer-to-peer builder support
- Venture Capitalist (VC) and Initial Dex Offerings (IDO) introductions
- Grant opportunities

Why build on Nervos?
Nervos will help you launch dApps that are inherently multi-chain. You can use Solidity, just like you would on Ethereum,
but you get the added benefit of interoperability with other blockchains.

So, you don’t have to build different versions of your dApps for different blockchains.

But how is this possible?

Our blockchain platform has 2 Layers:

Layer 1 provides the highest layer of blockchain security and decentralization capabilities.
Layer 2 is reserved for handling functions requiring high throughput. It’s flexible and offers a better UI with unlimited transactional capabilities and minimal transactional costs.
Thus, the two layers work together to solve the current interoperability and scalability issues in the current blockchain system.

In short, the Nervos ecosystem offers a solution for those looking for the benefits of Ethereum – with its establishment, good tooling, and documentation—but without the drawbacks, such as network congestion, high gas fees, over-saturation, and scalability issues.

If you would like to be a part of the Nervos Build Club, please fill out the application below:

https://share.hsforms.com/1OJsK4yV_QLW4Cf06QJwODwcadup

Get Ready to Hash it Out
Our successful weekly Twitter Spaces session of Hashing it Out is getting a major overhaul this April.
We are excited to let you know that starting this month, we will be bringing you a new and improved Hashing it Out.

This revamp of Hashing it Out will feature monthly Youtube audio episodes where we will cover major updates from in and around the Nervos Network.
It will also give the community an opportunity to get their questions answered.

With the likes of Hashing it Out regulars Jordan, Matt, Kylee, Taylor, and Amir appearing on the show, we hope you will listen in to keep up to date on the latest Nervos news.
Not only will it be news around Nervos, but in a podcast style, the team will tackle issues in the blockchain space and how they relate to Nervos.

Since everyone in our community is so important to us we want to make sure we gather input and answer questions from YOU.
We will be opening it up for questions from the community where you will be able to hear straight from foundation members exactly what is going on behind the scenes.
Just make sure to join our Discord to submit any questions you have there within the channel.

And More!
In addition to our new monthly Hashing it Out, we will also be holding ad hoc Twitter Space sessions for big news and updates.

If there is a major partnership coming up, or a big new launch, perhaps even a tech update or an AMA – we want to be there to explain it all.
Kylee will be on hand to host these Twitter spaces where we will dive into the latest update from Nervos that we think you will definitely want to hear first hand from our team.

Make sure to follow NervosNetwork on Twitter and stay tuned to find out when these will be happening as we will always announce them a few days beforehand.

Here for You
We know that our loyal community is always really interested in all the happenings at Nervos. We want to be available to share information and answer questions.
With this in mind we hope that our monthly Hashing it Out Youtube Podcasts and Twitter Spaces will provide the community with everything that they are
looking for to stay on top of our latest developments and hear directly from our dedicated team.

Why Nervos Works: Multi-chain for internet-like Interoperability



For the past few weeks, we have broken down ‘Why Nervos Works’. Starting with the Layer 1 Common Knowledge Foundation,
for security and decentralization, and moving to the Layer 2 of our architecture, which offers flexibility and future-proofing – we now turn to interoperability.

Interoperability has always been a particular target for Nervos.
We noted how early internet applications lived on segregated networks needing different ways to access and interact, and now,
in today’s decentralized world, we again see this segregation into different ecosystems with poor interoperability.

The Nervos Network solves this problem by offering a layered architecture that leads inherently to a powerful multi-chain approach

A foundation for Multi-Chain Capabilities

At the foundation of the ecosystem is the layer 1 CKB blockchain. It is designed to maximize security and decentralization.
It provides trust and validation to all layers built on top of it.

Layer 2 is designed to maximize scalability and throughput with near-instant transaction finality.
Multiple Layer 2s can be used in parallel to give higher throughput and bring additional features to the ecosystem.

Structurally, the Nervos virtual machine uses a computer architecture that gives blockchain developers a
level of flexibility and power that cannot be found on any other platform. This makes it easy for Nervos to quickly adapt to rapid changes in the industry, ongoing limitations, or respond to future challenges.

Having this structured architecture and utilizing different tools, Nervos becomes a platform designed to be inherently multi-chain.

Because of the construction of the Layer 1 CKB, Nervos operates at the lowest foundational level,
by emulating hardware itself on its virtual machine. This enables it to adapt quickly to future changes in the industry because the developer is given the flexibility of a full computer in a blockchain environment.

Adopting new cryptography – as in the fundamentals of another chain – is a massive undertaking that requires a
hard fork on many other platforms. On Nervos, it’s as simple as importing a new library into your smart contract.

Nervos’ vision of interoperability does not require that other projects be forced to conform to a single protocol.
This is an unrealistic expectation for an industry where innovation occurs rapidly, and competing protocols are always changing.

Not all interoperability solutions are created equal, and many stop at a superficial level.
Nervos excels in this regard, by demonstrating that it has the ability to adapt itself to the protocols of other platforms.

Force Bridge and More

The process starts with Force Bridge, a cross-chain bridge that allows assets like tokens and NFTs to move freely back and forth between Nervos and other networks.
At the same time, bridges are nothing new, Nervos’ ability to adapt means that it can support multiple address formats from other blockchains directly on the Nervos blockchain.

This means that users can use their existing dApp wallets with dApps built on Nervos even though the wallet was never designed to support Nervos.
This means there is nothing new to install and nothing new to learn; everything just works seamlessly – a true multi-chain, internet-like experience.

Nervos’ goal is to eventually provide bridges to all of the major blockchains, giving developers access to the largest reach possible.
Developers get massive efficiency savings because, on Nervos, all users will be able to use their dApp without having to create a separate version for every individual chain.

Through the capability enabled by Nervos, developers no longer need to create dApps that can require extensive resources to build on other blockchains.
Eventually, all dApps on Nervos will be connected to many blockchains, thereby making the dApp an instant universal dApp.

As it stands, Ethereum is the biggest and most popular programmable blockchain – however, it has limitations and flaws.
Additionally, while well documented for developers on how to build, the ecosystem is saturated and siloed.

Nervos solves this with its Layer 2; the first Layer 2 is designed for scalability and Ethereum compatibility.
It is fully compatible with the Ethereum programming environment – EVM – which means that existing dApps written in the
Solidity programming language can port to Nervos with no smart contract changes necessary. Ethereum developers will feel right at home building on Nervos.

This is the third part of a four-part series that breaks down the architecture of Nervos and why it works as a blockchain platform for today, and into the future.
Stay tuned for our final article on Blockchain Abstraction.

Getting the Most out of $CKB: What Wallets?
In order to get the most out of a cryptocurrency, users will always look for good wallet support. At Nervos, we are proud of the wallet integrations we have done to enable seamless storage and usage of $CKB.

From the world’s most popular hardware wallet – Ledger,  to being one of the first few coins to integrate with Web 3.0 browser Opera, Nervos is ensuring the safe storage and usability of its token.

While $CKB can be used and stored across a multitude of wallets, we will be looking at five of the more popular choices for our community – Ledger, Opera, Safepal, imToken, and Portal Wallet.

Ledger
Recently, it was announced that Ledger had added support for $CKB. Meaning Ledger users can now store, send and receive $CKB using their Ledger Nano X and Ledger Nano S wallets.

This is a major integration for $CKB as it not only provides excellent opportunities for cold storage of the token, but also allows for a lot more utility through the full suite of services available through Ledger.

As part of the integration, users are able to utilize Ledger to sign transactions securely as they use the many new dApps available on Nervos’ EVM-compatible Layer 2 blockchain Godwoken.

Click here for Ledger guide

Click here for a walkthrough tutorial video

Click here for a user guide for Neuron users

Opera
Having announced that Opera would become the fourth blockchain integrated into the Opera browser, we are happy to announce that our Layer 1 integration is currently live!

Opera’s millions of users can send and receive $CKB within the crypto wallet built into the Opera browser on Android. Once the next phase of integration is complete, the wallet will support token transactions on Nervos’ Layer 2, Godwoken.

Nervos is the latest blockchain to complete an integration with the browser after Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Celo.

Click here to read more

SafePal
Nervos was also recently added to the SafePal wallet ecosystem. Users of SafePal are now able to store their $CKB assets both on layer 1 and layer 2 directly within the SafePal wallet. However, SafePal offers more than just wallet support.

Through SafePal users have access to a fiat/$CKB gateway via Simplex, an EU-licensed financial institution. SafePal has also integrated the bridge between Nervos and Godwoken and will support liquidity mining of Nervos DeFi projects. Not to mention, SafePal supports $CKB Swap. (More on SafePal Support.)

SafePal has also been heavily involved in growing our first integrated DEX – YokaiSwap – choosing the DEX  as its first-ever layer 2 partner for Wallet Holder Offering (WHO).

Click here for a guide on Getting CKB to Yokai and back again

Click here for a user guide

imToken
imToken is a well established digital asset management platform offering an easy, simple and powerful interface for users. They support over 10 million users across more than 100 countries, and provide a multi-chain wallet, built-in token exchange, and a web3 dApp browser.

Read More about CKB on Nervos

Click here for guide on imToken 2.5.0

Click here for CKB DAO staking Tutorial with imToken

Portal Wallet
After the mainnet launch of Nervos in November 2019, Portal Wallet became the first dApp available on the network.

Portal Wallet is not only a wallet but also a complete dApp that leverages various features of Nervos. Users do not need to download new software or generate new keys/addresses to access Nervos, they can use their existing Ethereum addresses and wallets to receive and send CKB directly.

To enjoy this seamless experience, users can open the Portal Wallet with MetaMask, imToken, or a variety of other Ethereum dApp browsers to get started.

Portal Wallet bids farewell to the old process of downloading a new wallet to use a new public blockchain dApp, by allowing users to simply use their existing Ethereum address to send and receive CKB.

Read more about Portal Wallet

Watch a Portal Wallet Guide

https://www.pbwsummit.com/

What we do on summit?
- The mission is to create a narrative that Nervos are attending more functions, more summits and more conventions to elevate and push Nervos forward in 2022
- Nervos means business
- Generate excitement to get community to share with others
- We’ll be there using it our booth as a platform to attract new partnerships and to gather as many contacts as possible for new projects, developers and help build more community liasons

Paris Blockchain Week Summit is the flagship event of Paris Blockchain Week
gathering more than 3000 attendees, 70 sponsors, 250 speakers and 100 media partners.

During two days, PBWS will host sessions about traceability, leveraging blockchain on the innovation journey, digital governance,
what's been built in 2021/2022, the state of digital asset liquidity, international regulatory cooperation and much more!

Renowned speakers from the best blockchain and digital asset companies in the world will
share their stories and insights on the market and its prospects.

Join Nervos as we bring together a diverse group representing the brightest minds, game changers, creators,
regulators and insiders along with business professionals and leading investors / VC’s to help you navigate througth the blockchain industry.

Palais Brongniart is a historic building, located in the heart of Paris and formerly served as the French Stock Exchange for nearly 200 years will be the new location for the most exciting digital assets events in the world, the third edition of Paris Blockchain Week Summit on April 13th-14th 2022!”

Nervos are proud to be attending this majestic new location to showcase our tech.

Nervos Layer 1 – A Major Protocol Upgrade is Rolling Out



The Nervos Network core team is one step closer to checking off one of the biggest milestones in our roadmap for 2022.
A Major Protocol Upgrade is completed and will soon launch on the Nervos L1 Mainnet.

This significant achievement is the first hard fork since the Nervos Network 2019 initial Mainnet “Lina” launch.
And with it, we are excited to announce the new version of Mainnet will be named “Mirana.”

This Major Protocol Upgrade (RFCs available) will pave the way for brand new features such as cryptographic-friendly instruction sets,
virtual machine versioning, extensible block header, and new cryptography standards to improve efficiency, capability, and smart contract composability.

Numerous library updates have been provided along with the non-contentious hardfork (all consensus rule changes have been discussed and activated on Aggron Testnet since October 24th, 2021).

Our partners will begin their updates in preparation for the full upgrade launch on Mainnet at epoch 5414 (estimated date May 10th at 01:00 UTC).
We have provided a complete migration guide to ensure preparation for node operators, miners, wallets, exchanges, and L1 dApps. Please note that this does not require any action for CKB holders.

Watch out for future posts as we break down the specific changes made and their benefits!

For questions, comments or concerns, please join our Discord and discussion on the #2022-protocol-upgrade channel.