Feature Gate: Timely vote credits

[AshwinSekar]

Description

This will change the vote credit mechanism https://github.com/solana-foundation/solana-improvement-documents/blob/main/proposals/0033-timely-vote-credits.md, which will break consensus unless feature gated.

Additionally this will require community vote to approve.

Feature ID

2oXpeh141pPZCTCFHBsvCwG2BtaHZZAtrVhwaxSy6brS
tvcF6b1TRz353zKuhBjinZkKzjmihXmBAHJdjNYw1sQ

Activation Method

Staked Validator Vote

Deployment Considerations

Monitor vote credits upon activation.

Minimum Version

1.18.8

Testnet Activation Epoch

675

Devnet Activation Epoch

735

Mainnet-Beta Activation Epoch

703

[buffalu]

PLEASE LET ME KNOW BEFORE THIS SHIPS!!!!!!11!!1

This will break the currently deployed (as of October 5, 2023) version of the Jito Tip Distribution Program, which prevents Jito-Solana validators from operating correctly (not fatal to network, just a severe annoyance).

luckily my rebase just caught this as of commit 6f1922b in solana repo as we test tip distribution program functionality during CI

there are other jito programs that will likely be live that parse vote accounts on-chain as well that this will break, but those are less severe than this.

[AshwinSekar]

definitely will do, i believe the feature you want to track is this one:
#31264

When turned on this will migrate old VoteState into the new format.

[AshwinSekar]

rekeyed here anza-xyz#127