Dev Release 224

Purpose:
To provide a comprehensive update on the ongoing development efforts across the blockchain and explorer components. This release focuses on the configuration and performance testing of ASIC mining pools, and the GraphQL integration within the blockchain explorer aimed at improving data accessibility and scalability.

• Mining pool for ASIC miners successfully configured and operating at a difficulty level of 0.005.
• Upcoming tests to compare CPU and ASIC miner performance under variable difficulty thresholds.
• GraphQL integration underway to improve blockchain data querying and frontend responsiveness.
• Stability improvements and early monitoring mechanisms introduced to ensure consistent miner communication with the pool.

These developments bring the network closer to production-grade performance and scalability. The ASIC mining optimization ensures high-efficiency block processing, while GraphQL enhances the developer and user experience by enabling faster, more structured, and reliable access to blockchain data. Together, these initiatives strengthen the foundation of the ecosystem for future protocol upgrades and mainnet readiness.

The Explorer Team is focused on integrating GraphQL into the blockchain explorer to modernize data retrieval. Currently, the explorer relies on REST-based APIs, which, though functional, can be slower and less flexible for complex data queries.

With GraphQL, developers and users will be able to:

• Query multiple blockchain datasets (transactions, NFTs, tokens, etc.) in a single request.
• Reduce network overhead and improve UI performance for dashboards and visual analytics.
• Enable custom query structures, allowing dApps and analytic tools to fetch only the data they need.
   

The team is currently in the implementation phase, mapping existing REST endpoints to GraphQL resolvers, followed by a testing phase to validate response accuracy and system load performance. Once completed, this update will significantly enhance scalability, developer efficiency, and data precision.

The Blockchain Team continues to refine the mining pool setup for ASIC miners.
Currently, the pool operates seamlessly at a difficulty of 0.005, ensuring stable communication between miners and the pool. The next planned step involves parallel testing of CPU and ASIC miners on separate instances.

This test will help determine system behavior as difficulty levels increase:

• CPU miners are expected to stop contributing as difficulty surpasses their capability threshold.
• ASIC miners should continue uninterrupted mining, validating that the pool can intelligently differentiate between miner capacities and adjust workloads dynamically.

Additionally, the team is working on:

• Optimizing share validation logic to reduce rejected shares.
• Enhancing pool stability and block propagation speed under high hash rate conditions.
• Monitoring latency metrics and block acceptance rates to ensure a consistent reward mechanism.

This phase is critical to achieving an efficient and fair mining environment that supports both high-performance ASIC miners and smaller node participants while maintaining network integrity.

• Mining pool stability achieved at difficulty 0.005.
• Addressed intermittent connectivity issues between miner instances and pool servers.
• Improved system logs for better visibility during difficulty adjustments.

• Execute full-scale CPU vs ASIC miner behavior testing across separate environments.
• Complete GraphQL schema mapping and validation in the staging explorer environment.
• Conduct load testing on GraphQL endpoints to ensure optimal query response times.
• Initiate miner pool telemetry dashboard development for real-time performance monitoring.
• Prepare for upcoming sprint focused on explorer data visualization enhancements and mining performance optimization.

We value your input!
If you encounter any issues, notice inconsistencies, or have feature suggestions, please reach out to us at support@blockdag.network.
Your feedback helps us refine the system for greater performance, reliability, and community benefit.

The development teams are making strong, coordinated progress across both the blockchain and explorer layers. The ASIC mining pool is stabilizing under controlled difficulty levels, paving the way for large-scale miner participation. Simultaneously, the GraphQL integration will empower developers with faster and more flexible data access.

Together, these efforts mark a significant step toward a robust, high-performance, and developer-centric blockchain ecosystem.