Avalanche core team implements Cortina upgrade on mainnet

Avalanche, a proof-of-stake blockchain developed by Ava Labs, activated the Cortina upgrade on its mainnet, implementing changes to help optimize the network for developers.

Cortina upgraded to the latest version of Avalanche Go v1.10.0, the node implementation for the Avalanche network, at around 11 a.m. ET yesterday. 

The Cortina upgrade included migrating the X-Chain to run the Snowman++ consensus, which means that the entire network has been migrated to a single consensus engine. This change is crucial for integrating Avalanche Warp Messaging (AWM) as well as enabling complex X-Chain transactions.

Avalanche's different chains

The Avalanche X-Chain, or Exchange Chain, is one of the three primary chains within the platform, alongside the P-Chain (Platform Chain) and C-Chain (Contract Chain). The X-Chain is specifically designed for creating and managing native Avalanche assets.

Additionally, the upgrade involved changes to the C-Chain, the smart contract layer compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine. Cortina increased the C-Chain block gas limit from 8 million to 15 million gas to accommodate the deployment of more complex dApps on the network. The gas target, a specific amount of gas that the network aims to consume within a given time window, will be kept at 15 million gas per 10 seconds.

The upgrade comes at a time when the C-Chain, where the bulk of activity takes place, is seeing a resurgence. Daily transactions have more than tripled year to date after a period of significant decline at the end of 2022, data from the Avalanche block explorer SnowTrace shows.