Version 1.6.2 of the Chia reference client is now available for download. Included in this release is the addition of WalletConnect support, as well as several exciting new features to enhance the overall user experience in the Chia ecosystem. Throughout this blog post, we will highlight the latest updates incorporated in this latest version.
General User Experience Improvements
WalletConnect Support
WalletConnect is a widely adopted platform that enables dApps to connect to desktop or mobile wallet apps. Enabling WalletConnect support in the Chia desktop reference wallet will allow dApps to directly connect to the desktop wallet to simplify the experience of interacting with dApps. The goal is to enable any Chia wallet to connect to any dApps in support of a safe and efficient user experience as they interact across the Chia ecosystem.
WalletConnect support enables the following features for a user interacting with a dApp:
- Connect your wallet to a dApp through copy and pasting a connection link.
- Users will be able to see a list of connected dApps and have the ability to disconnect from the dApp.
- Use your Chia wallet as a way to log in/authenticate into a dApp.
- dApps can initiate a signature request to perform a spend (XCH, CAT, NFT) from the connected Chia wallet. Upon triggering the spend, the transaction will be prompted in the connected Chia wallet for the Chia wallet to manage the spend experience.
- Proof of NFT, DID, and CAT ownership can be confirmed after a dApp has been connected to the Chia reference wallet and upon confirmation from the user that the NFT is available in the connected wallet.
- All requests to a user’s wallet require confirmation from the user to perform any action or read any data from the wallet.
For additional details, check out our:
- list of commands available in our WalletConnect integration
- WalletConnect user guide
- video guide
Fee Input
Previously, we introduced a new design for adding fees when sending a CAT or XCH. With 1.6.2, the new fee input design is supported and integrated in all GUI locations, while in farming mode, where fees can be provided (Edited for clarity).
The recommended fees in the new design are currently a fixed default and will eventually support dynamic fee suggestions based on mempool activity in a future release.
Deprecate Legacy Keyring Support
Beginning with version 1.3, Chia’s reference wallet began prompting users to migrate their keys to keyring.yaml that were previously stored on the OS Keychain (MacOS), Vault (Windows) or Cryptfile (Linux). In version 1.5.0, we took the next step to deprecate legacy key storage with the ultimate goal of removing support for legacy keys.
Now with this release, all legacy keyrings will no longer be supported. The majority of users will have already migrated to the new keyring unless they have been ignoring the passphrase prompt in the recent updates starting with 1.3. Any users who need to recover keys from their legacy keyring can use the legacy_keyring.py tool as documented here or can install an earlier version and perform a migration.
Support Adding and Removal of Connected Full Nodes
For more advanced users, we have re-enabled support for the adding and removal of connected full nodes. With this feature, a user running a full node in the GUI can view their connected peers by clicking the “FULL NODE” icon. Peers may be added via the “CONNECT TO OTHER PEERS” button or can be removed by clicking the trashcan icon. Moving forward, users will have the option to add or delete a specific node via the mentioned icons when they view their node connections.
XCH Transaction Memos
The Chia wallet now allows users to include a text memo when sending an XCH transaction. The memo tag will initially be stored locally and will remain visible on the sender’s transaction ledger unless the wallet db is deleted and resynced.
For now, the memo input option is only available when sending transactions and now matches the same functionality provided by the CAT memo feature.
Removal of SkyNFT Links
Given the sale of SkyNFT, all direct user links to the marketplace are no longer available within the Chia client.
GUI Version Warning
In 1.6.2, we will show warnings for users operating a GUI version that is incompatible with our backend version. It is worth noting this warning will not apply to users downloading the Chia reference client for generic use and will predominantly impact users building from source code.
While this is not a firm stop, we do recommend using the same version of Chia services and the Chia GUI to ensure compatibility.
Bug fixes
Quite a few bug fixes have gone in to address different issues that have been reported. To see the full list, see our 1.6.2 release notes.
For Developers and Creators (RPC and CLI Only)
DID RPCs Update
Previous updates to the DID RPC functionality enabled easier access to metadata and increased the feature’s efficiency for developers. With this release, the implementation process of the DID primitive is considered complete.
NFT Updates
Recently, we recognized opportunities to improve the RPC output when minting an NFT to further enhance developers’ ability to mint and build tools. The nft_mint_nft RPC now outputs the coin launcher ID. With the coin launcher ID returned, users can look up the nft_get_info wallet RPC rather than calculating the launcher coin ID from the parent+puzhash+amount.
