HEAT 2.5.0 MANDATORY UPDATE - PLEASE EVERYONE UPDATE.

Hard fork set for block 1,245,000 which is somewhere around next Friday (April 6th).

Download available:

https://github.com/Heat-Ledger-Ltd/heatledger/releases/tag/v2.5.0

Heatledger 2.5.0

This is a mandatory update, all nodes on the network need to run this version or higher.

Nodes below 2.4.0 will automatically be blacklisted by this version.

Nodes on 2.4.0 will remain working untill we reach block 1,245,000 as of when
a hardfork will take place.

This version will perform a one time scan of the blockchain on startup.

## Installation

To install and run heatledger you need Java JDK 1.8 or higher installed, note that
JDK is different from standard java distributions.

On ubuntu we use sudo apt-get install default-jdk package. For other platforms
please look here http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/jdk8-downloads-2133151.html

For configuration settings see the conf/heat-default.properties files in the installation folder.

## Whats in this release

### No more forks

First and foremost this release fixes the occasional forks that occurred and which
required node operators to do the regular rescans of the blockchain. Those rescans
are not needed anymore as HEAT is now considered stable.

### Stable Storage Engine

HEAT is different from other crypto currencies because of its special custom
build storage engine. Our unique storage engine is what allows us to scale in
size and speed. Building this engine however proved more difficult than
using a one size fits all - off-the shelf - storage engine like every other
crypto out there.

Our hard work however paid off which leads us to this stable and mature 2.5.0
release.

### Benchmark

This version supports benchmark mode which allows you to participate in the
upcoming HEAT Benchmark Competition. Instructions for this will follow but
participating requires at the very least that you run a HEAT server. Once you
run a HEAT server on main net it will be easy to run a second HEAT server
on the same machine but on benchmark net.

### High Speed Binary API

We are moving away from JSON as a transport mechanism and are instead adopting
the binary AVRO encoding from HADOOP. One of the parts that makes it possible
to run a benchmark server which does many thousands of transactions a second
over the internet is the use of binary data over websockets.

This version has that new RPC mechanism to which you can talk from your browser,
mobile or NodeJS app. Interfacing with HEAT is made possible through our
officially supported HEAT-SDK https://www.npmjs.com/package/heat-sdk.

### Adjustable Fees (spam protection)

Transaction fees can be remotely raised or lowered by the developers without the
need to update the software. An incubation period of 24 hours is observed before
the new fees take affect. This allows us to already lower the fees and raise
them again in case of misuse.

This is a temporary measure. Once block file splitting is enabled we dont care
about this anymore since the chain can grow indefinitely from then on.

We will start lowering the fees after the hard fork.

### Mem Pool Fixes

While technically a part of the storage engine, it is worth mentioning that the
unconfirmed transaction pool had a bug fixed which caused unconfirmed transactions
to be improperly rolled back. Leading to forks due to balance differences between
nodes.

### Adjust heat.maxApiRecords

Use this setting to raise the number of rows returned from the various API's.

### Virtual Order Matcher

This is enabled again by default, the virtual matcher matches orders and generates
trades in real-time based on unconfirmed transactions.

### Numeric Account Ids

Numeric account ids are included in account search and in every autocomplete
now when sending transactions.