July marked a pivotal moment for the Sia network as the long-awaited v2 Hardfork was officially completed on July 3rd, ushering in a faster, more efficient, and streamlined decentralized storage ecosystem. This milestone solidifies Sia’s foundation for the next generation of protocol improvements, developer tooling, and user-facing applications.
Alongside this network upgrade, development teams across the ecosystem continued delivering significant refinements to core software, UI components, and SDKs. The Grants Program also saw a wave of new approvals—spanning decentralized apps, hardware wallet integrations, and protocol enhancements—while ongoing projects reported progress toward feature-complete milestones.
Development Updates
renterd: Stability & Performance Enhancements
renterd saw important backend improvements aimed at increasing stability and reducing unnecessary processing.
- Limited the number of chain state resets to minimize redundant operations.
- Broadcast maintenance transactions to ensure smoother network upkeep.
- Adjusted wallet behavior to prevent continuous defragmentation.
- Added
[GET] /pinned/*keyto retrieve the raw object metadata suitable for downloading using external tools.
The renterd App received several quality-of-life updates, including accurate current block height display in the contract timeline, removal of legacy v1 settings from the host explorer, a redesigned 2D host map, clearer median price metrics, and improved toast notification stacking.
hostd: Critical Bug Fixes & UI Consistency
hostd resolved critical stability issues with v2 contract handling and proof broadcasting, including fixes in v2.3.6 and v2.3.7, addressing panics and race conditions.
- Fixed a panic that occurred when v2 contracts transitioned to failed states after rescans were performed.
- Resolved a race condition with state element proofs during final revision broadcasts.
- Fixed a panic when broadcasting final revisions.
The hostd App now aligns with the unified UI pattern for toast notifications, stacking them more efficiently.
walletd: Improved Routing & UI Polish
The walletd App added improved routing for authentication and connectivity, enabling consensus and syncer routes to be made public without affecting the UI, alongside the same toast stacking optimization applied across apps.
linux: Package Support Updates
The linux repo removed Debian Buster support and added support for Ubuntu Plucky in Sia’s apt repository.
Grants Program Updates
Newly Approved Grants
- Lume Web – IPFS Portal: Enhances the Lume Web portal with a fully integrated IPFS hosting service, dashboard, and polished UI, enabling reliable pinning to Sia via IPFS for both ecosystem and external apps.
- Where – Crowd-Powered Location Insight & Safety Rating App: A mobile app for community-driven safety ratings and geo-tagged content, integrating Sia/S5 storage to preserve and decentralize user-generated location data.
- S5 v1 – Rewrite in Rust: Rebuilds the S5 protocol in Rust for improved performance, safety, and cross-platform integration, with a stable v1 release targeted by year-end.
- Cypherock X1 Integration: Full native integration of Sia into the Cypherock X1 hardware wallet and cySync desktop app, providing next-generation security without single points of failure for seed phrases.
- DecaNotes: A minimalist, cross-platform Markdown notes app with client-side encryption and Sia-backed storage via renterd.
Progress Reports from Ongoing Grants
- SecureSphere Decentralized Vault: Implemented a file vault module with Sia integration, enabling uploads, downloads, deletion, and file organization. Next steps include client-side encryption, enhanced progress tracking, and secure file sharing.
- S5 Gateway & TypeScript Client: Completed multiple milestones early, including HAMT integration, directory utilities, and full S5 portal integration with 100% test success. The next phase will focus on WASM-based media processing and browser compatibility.
- Luogo – Secure Group Location Sharing: Released MVP with QR pairing, group creation, and background service. Improved
s5_messengerfor broader application use, ongoing work includes UI polish and beta store releases. - Nydia – Passkey Holder: Released alpha versions for Chrome, Firefox, and Safari with recovery phrase encryption, async sync, race condition fixes, and improved compatibility.
Final Thoughts
July’s completion of the v2 Hardfork marks the beginning of a more efficient and developer-friendly era for Sia. With foundational protocol changes in place, ecosystem development is accelerating—from infrastructure upgrades in renterd and hostd, to a surge in grants aimed at user empowerment, decentralized app adoption, and cross-platform integrations.
The diversity of projects signals a growing ecosystem with both technical depth and user-focused innovation. The coming months will be about building on this momentum and bringing these new capabilities into the hands of end-users.
That’s all folks!
Thanks for your continued support and dedication as we build the foundation of the decentralized future.
Take care, and see you next month.
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