Both voting system and PoW are under review. PoW scheme has been slightly improved (simplified).

We are also willing to deliver new script cost estimating procedure and finalized curve points serialization in 2.0. Thus a next release will be 1.8 with voting system, or Pow, or both, whatever comes first.
I think the next week a release will come.

2.0 will be about minor changes then, and ready to start client-side libraries and wallet developments.

We are also starting to describe what is really done in Ergo (a brief teaser).

Voting system conceptually done, now it is possible to set desirable target parameters, and then a mining software will automatically propose a vote for increasing or decreasing (gradually) in the beginning of a voting epoch, or vote if a desired change proposed by another miner in the epoch. It is possible to change 2 parameters per voting epoch + also vote for soft-fork (over many voting epochs). A step for some parameters is set, for others 1% of current value.   

A simple example, if voting epoch is just about 4 blocks.

Initial values:


And then, at height 348.



PoW scheme and code are under review.

We're discussing what constitutes Testnet 2.0 as we announced that it will be almost the same as the mainnet. A decision on a next release will be given in coming days.

1.7.1 is out, please try script compilation feature! We're going to produce tutorials on how to do that (and use our API in general), if you want to help with that, welcome!

Before the next Friday it seems, 2.0 features will be mostly done and put under review and testing. Thus the 2.0 release is planned around 22-25th of November. In addition to voting and Proof-of-Work it will contain a new cost estimation procedure for scripts.

We have enough minor fixes and new API methods to release 1.7.1 and it will be released in coming days.

On 2.0 features, PoW is mostly ready and its description is on the way. Voting system is started, but no much progress here yet.

 After the "Smart Contracts for the People" article (see above), more posts describing ErgoScript are coming!

1.7 is under review and testing. It contains networking code refactoring & storage fee implementation.

Unlike most of cryptocurrencies, a coin can not live forever and for free in Ergo: for each block and each byte of a coin (aka unspent output or a box in Ergo jargon), a coin holder needs to pay according to a price coefficient K (cost of storing of a byte in a current active state per block) after 4 years, if a coin was not moved before this time. After the timeout, a miner can charge the storage fee, but needs to re-create a coin with decreased value(if storage fee charged was  no more than coin value, otherwise, the miner can destroy the coin fully). If coin is moved before the deadline, there's no any mandatory payment: we assume that fee market will get how to charge fairly.   


PoW code is mostly ready.

The last brick, voting system (miners voting to readjust parameters like block size etc) is to be started in coming days! So I guess we can launch Testnet 2.0 around Nov 1st. Testnet 2.0 will be conceptually close to the mainnet.

Maybe you could reuse waves wallet, DEX and matcher at some point in time? Sasha in his recent public speech mentioned that Matcher could be blockchain agnostic and usage on other chains is basically possible use-case. Also you have strong connections with Waves team.
I wonder how/then waves/Ergo miners/forgers could benefit from such usage. Also matcher decentralization is an interesting issue to look into during integration process.

Providing some news and answering questions:

1.7 is on the way. Instead of voting system (when miners are changing parameters of the system on the fly), it will contain demurrage component. The current design is, no any mandatory minimum fee on consensus level (so market will find a proper function for a transaction fee), but every four years a miner can charge some tokens, thus spending a coin and creating essentially the same coin but with a storage fee. The fee is calculated as K*(coin size in bytes)*storage time. K is to be changed via miners voting. If a user is moving a coin before expiration time, there is no mandatory storage fee to be paid then (but we assume that a transaction fee would be equal to storage fee for an efficient market).

I think 1.7 will be released at the end of the next week. Then 1.8 with voting system, and 2.0 with PoW.  PoW is mostly finalized. Then security audit, wallet API update etc, and then mainnet release. 2.0 will be around beginning-mid of November. Not sure about precise date for mainnet now.

We're talking with some outsourcing companies on developing wallet UI and decentralized exchange. 

When will this hidden gem release its mainnet?
Platform market becomes more and more competitive through, what kind of apps do you expect to run on?
Is there an exchange for ergo tokens under development?