I was going to use this title on April Fools' Day, but I ran out of time. It's too good not to use, so I'm using it now.

New Mirrornet Instance running our next HardFork version

^{Produced through the Sora computational diffusion model for image synthesis}

On April 1st, I was busy with something else - preparing a new public instance of mirrornet (a.k.a. fakenet).
I had already made a public instance available back in 2022, and, although any developer can run their own local testnet or even a local mirrornet, having an easy-to-use, full-scale, fully functional network with an alternate Hive reality - where you can test using existing mainnet accounts - is an invaluable testing tool.
It lets you test not only all kinds of applications running on Hive, but also conduct more advanced trials to see how the entire platform will behave, which is especially important when introducing major core changes, including the next HardFork.
And speaking of which, HardFork 28 on the Mirrornet is already applied starting at block 94625160.
Consensus nodes were using 1.27.11rc1, and haf_api_node (to serve API calls at https://api.fake.openhive.network) used 1.27.11rc2 and I will be switching it to use 1.27.11rc3. HAF servers courtesy of @blocktrades and @thebeedevs, thanks to their server resources downtime of my service could be minimal. I’m running witness nodes, currently producing blocks on behalf of 45 of them.

• Old mirrornet instance was shut down:
  2025-04-04T14:50:20.606248 p2p_plugin.cpp:579 broadcast_block ] Broadcasting block #94605067 with 21 transactions
• New mirrornet instance started block production:
  2025-04-05T08:35:53.800582 p2p_plugin.cpp:577 broadcast_block ] Broadcasting block #94625141 with 0 transactions
• Live (node based) conversion from mainnet started:

2025-04-05T10:09:35.723999 p2p_plugin.cpp:577            broadcast_block      ] Broadcasting block #94626764 with 479 transactions
2025-04-05T10:09:38.711690 p2p_plugin.cpp:577            broadcast_block      ] Broadcasting block #94626765 with 621 transactions
2025-04-05T10:09:41.697925 p2p_plugin.cpp:577            broadcast_block      ] Broadcasting block #94626766 with 620 transactions
2025-04-05T10:09:44.731228 p2p_plugin.cpp:577            broadcast_block      ] Broadcasting block #94626767 with 565 transactions
2025-04-05T10:09:47.706997 p2p_plugin.cpp:577            broadcast_block      ] Broadcasting block #94626768 with 655 transactions

• Two days later, the mirrornet full API node was fully operational (running 1.27.11rc2), perfect timing for a monthly CoreDev meeting.

Remember that re-initialization means that everything you did on the old Mirrornet instance is gone, so, if your application was holding some state you need to rebuild it.
Please refer to my previous posts if you are unfamiliar with what the Mirrornet/Fakenet is.
I strongly recommend reading them before doing anything involving the Hive Mirrornet. I don’t want to repeat what was written, and some of the information may be obsolete since it relates to previous instances that ran a long time ago. However, you can still gain a better understanding of what it’s all about.

• 2022-04-30 Hive Mirrornet (a.k.a. Fakenet) is up and running!
• 2022-08-05 Preparing Hive Mirrornet (a.k.a. fakenet) for the release candidate testing
• 2022-08-20 Full Public Fake/Mirror API [WIP]
• 2023-10-14 Mirror, Mirror on the Hive
• 2025-01-19 Breaking the mirror, building a new one

VSC - first steps

I’ve deployed my VSC node. I know very little about it, but I hope to fix that at some point. Hopefully running a node as such will be helpful to the ecosystem. Not financial advice or endorsing or anything, just saying. I haven’t staked any HIVE there yet, but you can already see how an account dedicated to this task gtg.vsc interacts with Hive by looking at the block explorer: https://explore.openhive.network/@gtg.vsc
First impressions and questions:

• It’s very quick and easy to deploy with minimal knowledge and effort
• Why does a Hive account broadcast the IP address of a peer? Is it used by other nodes' discovery process? Even if, I see no point in posting whole array that includes local addresses (127.0.0.1, 172.16.0.0/12, etc.)
• I’ve used an active key for deployment per instructions, but so far I see interactions using account_update operation to modify json_metadata of the account, and for that account_update2 operation and use posting_json_metadata instead.

For more info, look at @vaultec and @vsc.network posts.

Governance

Please remember, if you have Hive Power, it means that Hive is yours (to some extent). Use that power, and vote for witnesses and proposals.
If you were inactive governance-wise, your old votes might expire. Make sure that you vote for witnesses that are at least good enough for the job.

Trivia

• I’ve produced block 95000000 today!
• I had a small Hive meetup in the ZOO (I saw an unicorn and dinozaurs!)
• Last time I linked you a random video about Beekeeping (by John Cleese and Rowan Atkinson)
  this time it will be something completely different:

Forgive me for the bad quality; I just linked a first version I've found, apparently recorded with a potato.

"Elect a Clown - Expect a Circus"

Think about it the next time you cast your governance vote - on Hive or anywhere else.