Chain 3961 · the record
Ferminux switched consensus at block 160,000
At block 160,000 proof-of-work ended and a set of authorised signers, operated by the foundation, took over confirming blocks under Clique proof-of-authority. This page records what changed, the release, and how to verify it yourself.
Reading blocks 159,999 and 160,000 from rpc.ferminux.net…
The time is block 160,000's own timestamp, read from its header. Block 159,999 is the last proof-of-work block; from 160,000 every block is confirmed by an authorised signer, which you can check in any block header (section "Verify").
Why
On 21 August 2026 the chain stopped producing blocks for four hours and thirty-six minutes, and did not return to normal for nine — blocks 20,570 to 20,577 took nine hours between them. Rented GPU capacity had set the difficulty to a level the remaining producers could not meet, and proof-of-work only lowers difficulty when a block is found. Nothing downstream could work: the bridge could not confirm transfers and the explorer froze. That failure is structural to a small proof-of-work chain. Authority consensus removes the dependency entirely. What it costs is stated plainly on the consensus page.
What changed
| If you… | Then… |
|---|---|
| run a node | Software older than v1.1.0-posa stopped at block 160,000 and cannot follow the chain. Install the current release with the one-line installer below. |
| produced proof-of-work blocks | That ended at block 160,000. There is no proof-of-work after it. See the compensation rule below. |
| hold FMX, AZNT or USDF | Nothing. Same chain ID, same addresses, same balances, same contracts. |
| use the bridge | The bridge waits for a signed checkpoint of the new chain before it releases funds. Its current state is on the security page. |
| use the DEX, wallet or launchpad | Nothing. |
Addresses outside the foundation
Before the switch we looked at who it actually affected rather than guessing. In a census of the first 25,656 blocks, 97.05% came from the foundation's own address and a further 0.98% from the treasury address during the launch hour. Exactly one address that is not ours had produced Ferminux blocks — 0x4adbea69…742669bd, 505 blocks on 20 August, earning 3,030 FMX.
Compensation rule, as announced before the switch. Every address that produced a block before the fork and is not a foundation address receives a one-time credit equal to 100% of the block rewards it earned, paid from the community allocation on top of the rewards it already has. On the census numbers that is one address and 3,030 FMX. The eligible list is derived from block headers, published with the claim form, and fixed at the fork block.
Foundation addresses are excluded by name, because paying ourselves out of the community allocation for our own capacity would be a transfer dressed up as compensation. The excluded addresses are 0x7F164333…E45130f7 and 0xc0A5Eb61…65af15aB.
Release v1.1.0-posa
Identical to the software before it except that it knows the switch block and the reward-sink contract. Verify every file against its checksum.
| Platform | File | SHA-256 |
|---|---|---|
| Linux amd64 | ferminux-geth-v1.1.0-posa-linux-amd64 | 8bab124978fae52d8a1894189ba35ba1ba16e3524186b3f2a935dc0555257294 |
| Linux arm64 | ferminux-geth-v1.1.0-posa-linux-arm64 | e47c53fcdec1e7c6b588a52c170587dbe199d20700c2977b8ca773c8ee1e5f8e |
| macOS Apple Silicon | ferminux-geth-v1.1.0-posa-macos-arm64 | c3b98947d500822d65dab38985aa4f5fe54639aa39400b04c9c1bef79de311c2 |
| Windows amd64 | Coming soon: a tested Windows build. The Windows archive from before the switch stops at block 159,999 and cannot follow the chain, so it has been withdrawn. Until then, run the Linux build under WSL2 or in Docker. | |
curl -fsSL https://ferminux.net/install.sh | bash
Verify
Start the node and read its startup banner: it lists the authority switch at block 160000. Dump its genesis and compare the hash to the chain's: both must be 0x1b62e052ee210c433440b9cd21b93b3e6cdc813fe63674c842bca3967d92fadf. The signer set is readable from any node with clique_getSigners, and the consensus page shows how many are confirming right now.
Who confirms blocks
The authorised signer set confirms every block under Clique proof-of-authority, and the foundation operates every signer today. The live list is clique_getSigners on any node. The consensus page and the security page set out the rest in full, including what history is secured by and what happens if signers are lost.