Release: Sirius Patch 5 - v1.6.18

To enhance the network's functionality and secure the stability of the ecosystem, we are rolling out a new patch - v1.6.18.

Key Highlights of the Upgrade:

1. Size and Scope: While the upgrade is relatively minor in scale, it plays a significant role in maintaining network stability and it brings a very important feature to all integrators of MultiversX.
2. Backward Compatibility: This upgrade is backwards compatible to previous releases (rc/v1.6.15 - Sirius Patch 4).

Key Fixes in This Release:

• Deep VM queries on metachain: We enabled VM queries for all epochs. Previously, VM queries were possible at blocks within epochs covered by the active persisters ( last 3 epochs). This came with some necessary adaptations needed because in some cases, deep VM queries against old epochs caused subsequent VM queries on recent blocks to fail. That's why if observer is started in deep-history mode, we had to perform deep VM queries, using recreateTrieFromEpoch Otherwise, we had to rely on
  recreateTrie.

• Small fix for local testnet in multikey: We addressed an issue where with the deprecation of -no-key flag, the local testnets scripts would start the observers as multi key nodes. The scripts had to be slightly changed.

There is no activation epoch for this upgrade.

Action Required: We recommend to all validators to update their nodes to version v1.6.18. Even though it is not mandatory, it is highly recommended to upgrade the nodes.

Governance

Given the nature of the release → Critical Upgrade (as it contains some bugfixes) as proposed on Agora, there is no need for a governance call.

The Governance call for Sirius Release passed with 97.89% YES.

Mainnet Config: https://github.com/multiversx/mx-chain-mainnet-config/releases/tag/v1.6.18.0

Github Link to Sirius - v1.6.18: https://github.com/multiversx/mx-chain-go/releases/tag/v1.6.18