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The 4th Anniversary of Lisk Network

Four years ago, on May 24th 2016 at 5am UTC, the Lisk network was successfully launched and the Lisk v0.3.0 was deployed to the public. This was just the beginning of our journey to create the Lisk blockchain application platform. Since the Mainnet went live, Lisk reached a block height 12.3 million and over 3 million transactions were made. Over 1800 delegate accounts have been registered on the network and more than 39 million LSK tokens have been forged by delegates so far.

Making use of developer tools, cryptocurrency wallets, and a vibrant community, we aim to make blockchain more accessible by creating a world in which everyone benefits from this technology. In the past years, Lisk has been improving its technology and strengthening its ecosystem. This blog post summarizes some of the most important network milestones and major achievements.

By Lisk

25 May 2019

4th Anniversary of Lisk Network

Four years ago, on May 24th 2016 at 5am UTC, the Lisk network was successfully launched and the Lisk v0.3.0 was deployed to the public. This was just the beginning of our journey to create the Lisk blockchain application platform. Since the Mainnet went live, Lisk reached a block height 12.3 million and over 3 million transactions were made. Over 1800 delegate accounts have been registered on the network and more than 39 million LSK tokens have been forged by delegates so far.

Making use of developer tools, cryptocurrency wallets, and a vibrant community, we aim to make blockchain more accessible by creating a world in which everyone benefits from this technology. In the past years, Lisk has been improving its technology and strengthening its ecosystem. This blog post summarizes some of the most important network milestones and major achievements.

Looking Back on Lisk Network

Launching Lisk Core 1.0 to Mainnet

Lisk Core product was first created in February 2016 and it had 41 iterations until Lisk Core 1.0, with over 8,000 commits made and over 1,000 issues closed. After a diligent period of development, testing and quality assurance, in August 2018 Lisk Core 1.0 came with 4 of the most important features. In order to increase the user adoption, a user-friendly API - REST - was introduced.

Another important feature was the redesign of the P2P layer with the goal of maximizing the performance and the reliability of the network through a real-time framework provided by SocketCluster. Lisk Core 1.0 also brought a transaction memo, which is a new data field giving the option to include a custom message (64 bytes length) with the transaction. The fourth important feature of Lisk Core 1.0 consisted of the fully atomic block write which guaranteed the highest level of security together with improved processing efficiency.

Introducing the LIPs Process

After the completion of the Inception phase of the roadmap, the remaining part was divided into different phases. Each of these phases represents important milestones in Lisk’s development which focus on specific objectives and their corresponding Lisk Improvement Proposals (LIPs).

They provide the scientific foundation of the Lisk network development through a proposal system allowing transparent discussion. The LIP process allows the gathering of feedback for the proposals aiming to tackle roadmap objectives. This open discussion around LIPs takes place on the Lisk Research forum which gathered over 100 users who are actively involved.

Creating the Lisk SDK Monorepo

As preparation for the Alpha SDK release, different Lisk products were merged into a monorepo structure. Lisk Elements and Lisk Commander were merged to the old Lisk Core repository and it was renamed Lisk SDK. The application part of our blockchain was moved to a new repository called Lisk Core. The new monorepo marked the beginning of the Lisk Framework, which combines all of the elements and maintains the interactions between the modules of a Lisk blockchain application.

Launching Lisk Core 2.0.0 to Mainnet

In July 2019, Lisk Core 2.0.0 was released to the Mainnet. Due to the fact that this was the first Lisk Core release using the SDK, the Lisk SDK 2.0.0 was also published to the NPM registry. This release represented the completion of the following objectives of the Development Roadmap: Implement design pattern for protocol change, Improve transaction processing efficiency, Create transactions element, Create transaction pool element, Add node dependency/management/configuration commands.

Beginning of Alpha SDK Phase

In July 2019, short after Lisk Core 2.0.0, we released Lisk SDK 2.1.0 which also marked the beginning of the Alpha SDK phase. This release was a very important milestone for the project. The Alpha SDK allows developers to spin up their own blockchain network and create proof of concept blockchain applications based on the Lisk Protocol.

Moreover, this release also offers developers the ability to experiment with custom transactions. In 2019 we also launched the new Lisk Builders program with the aim to support developers in building industry specific applications. With more than nine participants so far, who are developing their own proof of concept blockchain applications, this program is meant to inspire both developers and businesses to further develop with Lisk SDK.

Releasing Lisk Core 3.0.0_beta.0

The Lisk Core 3.0.0_beta.0 release implements 4 LIPs as part of the Security and Reliability phase. All the objectives of this phase were implemented into the Lisk SDK 3.0.2. This release comes with several new features on the protocol and also various improvements on the code level. One of the biggest protocol improvements for this phase was the change of the consensus protocol to add block finality to the Lisk blockchain through a Byzantine Fault Tolerance consensus algorithm. As an important aspect for the future Lisk sidechains, this guarantees that a block can never be reverted.

Updating the Lisk Documentation

In February 2020, the entire documentation workflow was updated. Several improvements were made on the existing Lisk documentation. This is now structured into two different components: Lisk SDK documentation and Lisk Core documentation. Besides the new structure, an internal search into the entire documentation content is possible. Another important change in the documentation is the conversion of the files from Markdown to AsciiDoc. For technical questions about Lisk SDK and Lisk Core, we also introduced the Lisk Dev forum as a knowledge base for developers.

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Other Achievements

Updating the Lisk Wallet

The LSK token holders can interact with the network through the graphical user interface: Lisk Wallet, available on both desktop and mobile. Over the years, our main interest was to offer the best user experience and security. On a technical level, a lot of progress has been made and multiple updates have happened. We are very proud to see that since 2016 over 250 thousand accounts were created with at least one transaction and over 3 million transactions were made. Moreover, the Lisk Wallet offers both LSK and BTC support.

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Refreshing the Lisk Brand

An important moment after the Lisk brand relaunch in 2018, was the migration of our online presence to a robust and scalable system - a new website for Lisk. The main goal of the refreshed visual style and the new website was to make Lisk more responsive to a growing blockchain application platform. Therefore, we have added pages for newcomers to learn more about blockchain and about the Lisk project, a set of multiple pages for developers to check out the Lisk SDK and engage in the builders programs, a page to showcase the applications built by our community and many more. An important addition to our website is the Lisk Enterprise portal as a starting point for collaboration with enterprises offering ideas for blockchain applications development.

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Hosting the Lisk.js 2019

Another fundamental achievement for Lisk was the lisk.js 2019 - our first annual developer focused event. This event showcased the combined development and research efforts of the Lisk project in the form of presentations, workshops and challenges. Over 183 developers and blockchain enthusiasts from 18 different countries attended the event in 2019. We are very excited to host the second annual event this year in Berlin.

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We would like to say a big thank you to the entire Lisk community for the ongoing commitment and support. We are very grateful to have you all bringing the Lisk ecosystem forward. Our vibrant community of blockchain enthusiasts and builders, as well as our community heroes, helped us bring the Lisk ecosystem where it is today.