THORChain Testnet 4.1 Ready for The Public

2020-07-27 — 3 min read

Overview

THORChain Testnet 4.1 is ready for Node Operators to practice churning in, and for public swaps and staking.

The following are the points:

THORNode Operators

Node Candidates (or anyone who wishes to verify the THORNode set up) should follow the instructions at https://docs.thorchain.org/thornodes/kubernetes

When they get to the point at which to send a 20,000 RUNE Bond, they should apply with the team to receive these assets. The team can be reached in any of the telegram or discord channels, however https://t.me/thorchain_dev is preferred.

They can also opt-in to receive a monthly subsidy of $1000 in RUNE to pay for Node Costs. They can fill out these details in a Form the team will provide.

Stakers/Swappers

Get a Testnet Keystore preloaded with Assets from @bepswapbot on telegram.

Or head to Binance Testnet, create new keystore and withdraw 200 TBNB from the faucet. You can then use this TBNB to swap into assets in the pools on BEPSwap.

Stake into pools, create new ones.

Swap between assets and verify the system works.

Testnet 4.1

The latest Testnet (supporting testnet.bepswap.com) has the following aspects:

Quality-Of-Life

Various improvements for node operators, including syncing chain status and bond information.

Improved TSS Reliability

TSS has been improved in reliability from TN4 and Nodes will see less slash points.

Upgrade Features

TN4 has a chain halt and upgrade feature to allow faster upgrading of the chain in case issues are found.

Bonding, Slashing, Rewards, Jail

All the features required to reward and penalise nodes are active. Node operators will earn RUNE for their service (testnet RUNE — not worth anything, but representative of Chaosnet rewards).

10–20 Second Swaps

Swaps have been observed to be processed inside of 7 seconds, but typically they are completed in 10–20 seconds.

30 Nodes

The design goal of Testnet4.1 is to reach 30 public nodes.

Bug Bounties

Bug bounties are ongoing and handled case-by-case. If you see something, or can contribute somehow, please get in touch with the team. There is an active bounty to convert a linux script to powershell.

Known Issues

Testnet 4.1 does not optimise during a churn event, so every time a new node churns the network will slow down and swaps will be visibly slower.

There are some minor quality-of-life issues for THORNode operators that are under active implementation.

Next Milestones

If Testnet 4.1 is successful, then Chaosnet will immediately follow. The team are looking for several weeks of smooth operations, as well as a successful Ragnarök at some point.

In addition, the team want to see at least 30 unique nodes involved.