Stellar (XLM) Development Foundation Delays Protocol 20 Upgrade Due to Core Bug

The Stellar (XLM) Development Foundation (SDF) has decided to postpone the vote on Protocol 20, initially scheduled for January 30, due to a bug discovered in Stellar Core v20.1.0. This decision came after the SDF received feedback from various participants in the Stellar ecosystem, including contract developers, wallet developers, validators, and tools builders.

The bug, identified on January 25, 2024, affects fee-bump transactions for Soroban smart contracts on the Stellar blockchain. It could potentially impact applications and services that use fee bumps for Soroban transactions if the Mainnet upgrades to Protocol 20. While the SDF initially assessed the risk posed by the bug as minimal, they later decided to delay the upgrade in response to the ecosystem's feedback and the need for a broad consensus.

The SDF has "disarmed" its validators to prevent them from voting for the upgrade on the planned date. However, it's important to note that the decision to upgrade does not solely rest with the SDF. Other validators on the Stellar network may still choose to vote for the Protocol 20 upgrade on the scheduled date. A quorum is required by the voting validators for the Protocol 20 upgrade to pass.

Protocol 20 is a significant upgrade for the Stellar network, aiming to introduce smart contract functionality through a phased rollout of the Soroban platform, which is a smart contract platform that went live on a Stellar testnet in October 2022. The SDF also launched a $100 million fund to attract developers to the platform at that time.

The SDF plans to coordinate with validators to determine a new upgrade date once a new version of Stellar Core containing the bug fix is available, which is expected within the next two weeks. The Stellar blockchain currently hosts over 40 validator nodes, and a validator quorum will be required for any future upgrade proposal.

This delay is a careful step by the SDF to ensure the stability and reliability of the Stellar network as it introduces significant protocol changes. The commitment to involving the community and validators in these decisions highlights the collaborative nature of blockchain governance.