Theta v3.4.0 upgrade to go into effect on September 28, preparing for Metachain by adding wrapped THETA and staking via smart contracts
We are pleased to announce that Theta v3.4.0 will soon go into effect via a hard fork in late September. This upgrade enables the support for wrapped THETA (wTHETA) as a TNT20 token (a critical prerequisite to the launch of Theta Metachain), as well as staking THETA/TFuel to Guardian Nodes/Elite Edge Nodes from smart contracts. This release will perform a hardfork to enable the new features at block height 17285755, approximately 7pm Sep 28, 2022 Pacific Time. If you are running a validator node it is mandatory to update to this new version, otherwise it will fall out of sync after the hardfork. To upgrade your node or review the v3.4.0 source code, check the following page: https://github.com/thetatoken/theta-protocol-ledger/releases/tag/v3.4.0
wTHETA is a TNT20 token that is ‘wrapped’ around a native THETA token via smart contract. This allows THETA to be used within smart contracts, which normally isn’t possible as a native token. You may be familiar with a similar concept in wETH, where behind the scenes your ETH is wrapped into wETH when you use it in a Dapp like Uniswap or Maker.
This upgrade is critical in that it permits THETA to be used in Theta-based Dapps, for DeFi, or within Metamask wallets among many other use cases. It also means that staking THETA to Guardian Nodes or TFUEL to Elite Edge Nodes can now be done through smart contracts, which makes pooled staking easier and allows users to create a wider variety of staking products. Additionally, for the upcoming Metachain upgrade wTHETA is needed to register a subchain and to post THETA collateral for the subchain validators. Altogether it means greatly increased utility for THETA token and for the ecosystem as a whole.
Once the upgrade is complete on September 28, Theta Wallet apps will be updated to allow users to wrap and unwrap wTHETA through the wallet interface. Documentation will also be provided for the wrap/unwrap process as well as how to stake THETA and TFUEL via smart contracts.
