Charles Hoskinson dismisses claim that Cardano is rushing the Vasil upgrade

Charles Hoskinson responded to a developer of the Cardano ecosystem who stated that a flaw in node version 1.35.2 was to blame for the catastrophic failure of the Cardano testnet.

Cardano developer Adam Dean reported the failure of the Cardano Testnet due to a bug in Cardano node version 1.35.2 in a thread on Twitter on August 18. The “rushing” of the Vasil hard fork, Dean claimed, gives him pause because the Cardano network is on the verge of colliding with a “nuclear rock.” 

🧵 (1/n) It's important to point out today that the #Cardano #Testnet is **catastrophically** broken due to a bug in Cardano Node v 1.35.2. This was the version that we had previously been told was "Tested and Ready" for the Vasil Hardfork. This bug was only discovered…

— Adam Dean (@adamKDean) August 18, 2022

Dean went on to say that the flaw reduced chain density and produced incompatible forks. An on-chain inquiry by the Cardano Operator supporters’ pool, ATADA Stakepool, and Pooltooll discovered the problem.

The node v1.35.2, which was intended to serve as the foundation for the upcoming Vasil hard fork, was found to contain a bug. It had been previously declared to be “tested and ready.” This reportedly happened as a result of the pool operators rushing to upgrade the mainnet, which led to incompatible forks and a decrease in chain density.

Cardano published a new client program, Cardano Node 1.35.3, in response to the bug’s discovery, but it is unable to sync with the original testnet and is instead operating on two new testnets with no block history.

Adam was retorted by Charles Hoskinson, who stated that everyone, including the network’s stake pool operators, had carefully tested the code for months (SPOs). He said that version 1.35.3, which was issued earlier this week after the bug was found, contained a fix for the vulnerability in 1.35.2. 

It's bizarre and alarmist seeing these videos floating around that things are being rushed with 1.35.3. The code in question has been thoroughly tested for months by everyone including SPOs. The code that was an issue on the testnet has been removed.

— Charles Hoskinson (@IOHK_Charles) August 19, 2022

Charles added that the Cardano community may decide to postpone the Vasil hard fork’s introduction for a few months so that it may test the code once more after having done so “a dozen times.” 

You're the SPOs, you ultimately decide. I'm seriously tired of taking the blame on both sides. Cardano is decentralized. The people running the network ultimately decide upgrades not me.

— Charles Hoskinson (@IOHK_Charles) August 19, 2022

It’s unclear whether the upgrade for the Vasil hard fork will be postponed any further now that the devs have found the flaw. It was planned for the Vasil hard fork to be introduced in late June. But as the deadline drew near, Input Output decided to delay the hard fork for “a few more weeks” to give more time for testing.