On May 6, 2020 at 18:00 UTC (12:00 MDT, 2 pm EDT) Ravencoin will undergo an algo swap. This will not the first time, but my hope is that it will be the last time.
Make sure any Ravencoin sites you’re working with, including exchanges, wallets, merchant tools, explorers, etc. have upgraded to 4.1.0+.
This upgrade and algo swap has some risks, so the safest option is to have control of your keys for your RVN before May 6th.
The new algo, named KAWPOW, is a derivative of ProgPOW, which is a derivative of ethash. KAWPOW has been running successfully on Ravencoin’s testnet for a few months. The majority of the risk is in the mainnet transition. There will be 180 blocks mined at a fixed calculated difficulty, and this might be “easy money”. These 180 blocks could take more than 3 hours but are likely to take less than 3 hours. No excess RVN will be created, but the easier difficulty might make for some fast profits for those that are prepared. After that, the DGW difficulty adjustment will kick in and calibrate to 1-minute blocks.
We don’t expect any problems, but if there is a failure to transition from x16rV2 to KAWPOW, the problems will be fixed and the chain will be continued from the last x16rV2 mined block. This is a low probability event.