THORChain release multichain testnet feat. Bitcoin support

2020-11-11 — 5 min read

Summary

THORChain contributors are pleased to announce multichain testnet1 #MCTN1 is live for community testing with support for Bitcoin and Binance Chain.

Users can swap between Binance Chain and Bitcoin assets, as well as provide liquidity to BNB or BTC pools.

Nodes can join the network if they wish by bonding tRune.

Developers can now start viewing how multichain works in order to prep their products to support multichain ahead of time.

How To Test

Head to the site

Generate a new keystore (this is a special purpose BIP39 cross-chain keystore to be used for ANY chain).

Send it funds (simply tRUNE is enough, since you can swap from that to any other asset). Get tRUNE from @runefaucetbot on telegram.

Swap and Pool

Test sending and receiving.

Address available from wallet in top right. Click each address to view funds and copy it

Testnet Objective

The release of multichain tesnet is intended to demonstrate progress toward the goal of a multichain chaosnet later this year and gives the community an opportunity to get hands on with testing.

Community testing will generate valuable test data and ideally flush out any latent bugs, specifically with handling UTXOs. Multichain tesnet is not intended to be feature complete or gold plated, only minimally viable.

Multichain testnet includes all of the functionality of Chaosnet in addition to:

Bitcoin support enabling layer 1 bitcoin swaps to/from Binance Chain
MIDGARD version 2 — a complete rewrite of the MDIGARD API
Asgard exchange community interface

Testnet Exclusions

The following features / products are not in scope for the first public version of multichain testnet but will be included in future iterations.

Native RUNE
Multi Asgard vaults
Asymmetric withdrawals
Affiliate fees
GG20 upgrade
Asgard Desktop Wallet
BEPSwap interface

Issues / Bugs

Issues can be submitted to the asgard exchange github (link below). THORChain contributors will triage issues and respond accordingly. Please check your issue is not already raised before submitting.

Be sure to include your testnet addresses (Bitcoin and Binance Chain), transaction hash and steps to reproduce.

Details

Interface — https://testnet.asgard.exchange/swap

Seed Service — https://testnet.multichain.seed.thorchain.info

Midgard V1—https://testnet.multichain.midgard.thorchain.info/v1/doc

Midgard V2 — https://testnet.multichain.midgard.thorchain.info/v2/doc

THORNode — http://18.158.236.117:1317/thorchain/pool_addresses

How it Works

A TSS-generated BTC vault address is created by the TSS committee in the same manner as BNB. This is available on the pool_addresses endpoint. Members use their wallets to spend their Bitcoin into the system using the OP_RETURN to pass transaction intent. THORChain picks this up and handles in the same manner as BNB. An outgoing transaction is then generated and signed back to Bitcoin.

Conf-counting

Bitcoin is probabilistically final so THORChain applies “conf-counting” logic — the number of confirmations required for each inbound transaction is equal to the value of that transaction relative to the economic value of that block (fees and block rewards). Since the rewards and fees on testnet are low, confirmations required are much higher than on mainnet — so users are encouraged to handle small amounts of BTC (0.001–0.1) to avoid long delays.

OP_RETURN

Transaction intent is passed via the OP_RETURN. This requires a custom wallet interface, which is why users first have to create a new Keystore on the interface. This can later be imported into the Desktop app, or a browser extension. Since it uses BIP39, users can also import their BIP39 phrases into any other wallet to see their free balances.

Users should consider the wallet they create with ASGARDEX is their “trading && yield” wallet, and first move funds into it before interacting with THORChain.

Midgard V2

Midgard V2 is also available for testing by developers to see the performance of the new API. This will soon be the go-to API client for multichain.

What’s Next?

Work continues to optimise & improve multichain in addition to finalising the feature set above; notably native RUNE which will become available in the next release. The high level roadmap is available on Miro for review and is subject to change.

Multichain Chaosnet will launch following successful testing cycles and once all outstanding features have been released. In addition to supporting Bitcoin, Multichain Chaosnet will also be the first live network to feature native RUNE; eliminating the dependency on Binance Chain & reducing bloat on THORChain’s KV store.

The launch and migration strategy from single-chain to multi-chain chaosnet as well as the BEP2 > Native RUNE migration strategy will be made clear in the coming weeks. There is nothing you need to do immediately.

Key Take Aways

Multichain testnet is live to the public
The asgard.exchange community interface is live
MIDGARD v2 is live
Go forth and test bitcoin <> BEP2 swaps
Break things & log issues on Github
Your support will help THORChain launch Multichain Chaosnet in 2020!

Conclusion

THORChain has deployed a Bitcoin testnet that is available for public testing. This is a monumental step and represents the first time a decentralised peer-to-pool protocol has been built on Bitcoin.