Mandatory Komodo Daemon Update Before January 1, 2026

We are excited to announce the release of Komodo v0.9.2 [Draco Typhon].

This is an announcement from the Komodo Platform team regarding an upcoming mandatory update to the Komodo daemon. The Komodo development team has introduced critical changes to the Komodo code base. These changes are mandatory for the entire network before January 1, 2026.

This release introduces Auto-Checkpointing (dPoW 2.0), a new automatic checkpoint system that will replace the existing dPoW (Delayed Proof of Work) mechanism, which is being sunset on January 4–5, 2026.

Please make sure to update your Komodo daemon promptly to ensure users can continue to use wallets without service interruption.

Timeline

Exchanges and service providers are advised to pause all wallet operations (deposits/withdrawals) from January 3, 2026, 12:00 UTC until January 7, 2026, 12:00 UTC.  We will post an announcement and let all concerned stakeholders know as soon as we confirm successful network upgrade.

The Komodo daemon will activate the hard fork at KMD block height 4771595 (expected to take place on January 5, 2026). Assetchains (Komodo Smart Chains like CCL, CLC, GLEEC, THC, DOC, MARTY):  will activate the upgrade precisely at timestamp Timestamp Jan 4, 2026 12:00 UTC.

0.9.2 Changelog

This is a mandatory major version that includes breaking changes.

Auto-Checkpointing (dPoW 2.0)

The auto-checkpoint system (adapted from Gulden/PPCoin) allows a developer node to broadcast signed checkpoint messages that protect the chain against malicious reorganization attacks. Checkpoints are created 10 blocks behind the chain tip, and all nodes validate incoming checkpoints.

Key Changes:

• New P2P "checkpoint" message for broadcasting and receiving checkpoints across the network
• Persistent checkpoint state stored to disk under datadir/sync_checkpoint/
• New RPC command: getcheckpoint returns the current sync checkpoint
• Enhanced getblockchaininfo now includes sync checkpoint status and dPoW status fields
• Transaction listings now include a secured_by_checkpoint field for improved transparency
• Protocol version bumped to 170014
• KMD deprecation height extended to 5895951

Instructions for Updating the CLI Daemon

If you have the Komodo daemon running, you can keep it running while updating if your machine has sufficient processing power. If you prefer to stop it before updating, please use:

~/komodo/src/komodo-cli stop

to stop the daemon and proceed with the steps to update.

Be sure to follow each of these steps carefully. Don’t move onto the next step until the previous one is successfully completed.

Step 1

Navigate to your Komodo directory.

cd ~/komodo

Step 2

Make sure you don't have any changes made to the source and reset it. This will ensure a clean source and shouldn't create any issues while pulling the latest source in the next step.

git reset --hard

Step 3

Use master branch

git checkout master

Step 4

Clean the source directory.

make clean

Step 5

Update the source. (If you’ve made any changes to the source code, this step may not pull the latest source. Please make sure you use the step above to eliminate this issue.)

git pull

Step 6

Compile the latest binary.

./zcutil/build.sh -j$(nproc)

Start your services as usual. (If you have not stopped the Komodo daemon before compiling, please stop the daemon now and start it again.)

Step 7

Verify the update.

~/komodo/src/komodo-cli getinfo

Please look for the protocolversion in the output of the above call, which should display:

"protocolversion": 170014,

This verifies your Komodo (KMD) wallet daemon is updated to the latest version which has the required updates.

Troubleshooting

If your blockchain data folder contains data from an older daemon version (before we switched to the 0.7.x versioning, such as 3.x.x), you might encounter this error when starting the 0.9.0 daemon:

2024-08-21 18:49:12 ERROR: LoadBlockIndex() : failed to read value
2024-08-21 18:49:12 : Error loading block database.
error in HDD data, might just need to update to latest, if that doesn't work, then you need to resync.

This should only be an issue on long running nodes that have been running continuously without a recent "sync from scratch"

In this case, you have several options:

• Resync from scratch (slowest but most accurate, allowing your node to recalculate value pools).
• Bootstrap from dexstats.info (fastest, but since the initial sync version is unknown, value pools might be incorrectly calculated). Value pools refer to the stats for transparent, sprout, sapling, and burned chain values.
• Reindex with -reindex (but options resync and bootstrap are recommended).

Need Assistance?

If you have any questions or need further assistance with this update, please contact the Komodo support team on the Komodo Discord server.