Dusk Network has launched the second iteration of its testnet: Daylight. Among the newly implemented features is the network’s upgraded staking contract, which improves the stability of the blockchain and paves the road for scalable node participation in the near future.
Since the launch of our first version of testnet “Daybreak” in March 2022 the developers at Dusk Network have been working non-stop on improvements and bug fixes. Today we proudly launch the second edition of our testnet called “Daylight”. In this article you will be informed about all the changes and improvements Testnet Daylight will bring to the Dusk Network.
Daylight Testnet brings upgraded Staking Contract
The improved testnet allows network participants and the wider blockchain community to begin transacting on the network, pressure-testing it for performance and user-experience improvements.
Daylight is an important milestone in Dusk Network’s journey toward becoming the layer-1 blockchain for confidential smart contracts, powered by zero-knowledge cryptography.
The testnet is powered by more than 100 nodes at launch, a significant upgrade from Daybreak’s node economy. Increasing the number of Provisioners has had no adverse impact on the stability of the network, bolstering the team’s confidence in onboarding community node runners in the near future.
In addition to the numerous stability and resilience improvements, the team also released various user-facing improvements.
A significantly faster CLI Wallet
A new Command Line Interface (CLI) wallet for users to interact with the Daylight testnet, fully replacing the old CLI wallet. The new CLI wallet boasts fast synchronization times and a stable cache mechanism to fetch user balances quickly. This update aims to fully resolve connectivity issues.
Almost ready for… Staking!
The latest deployment features a new staking contract that has been completely refactored to resolve an issue with the blockchain’s storage. In addition, block rewards (the reward in DUSK given to provisioners supporting the network) will now be accumulated instead of being immediately transferred. This streamlines reward distribution. Provisioners can now initiate a “withdraw reward” transaction to receive their rewards. Whilst Daylight isn’t open for community node participation yet, Dusk Network will begin testing the resilience of the network with the addition of malicious nodes, as well as some community-run nodes.
Block Explorer: Gas Tracking & User Experience improvements
The block explorer enables anyone to quickly gauge on-chain activity and, with today’s upgrade, minor improvements to the user experience will be noticeable. For example, the TPS statistic has been replaced with a statistic that indicates the total number of transactions in the last 100 blocks. In addition, users can now track gas expenditures in real-time.
Next steps
Since March 2022 we’ve been testing the Daybreak network in a protected environment. All nodes were hosted by the team, whilst the community could interact with the network by firing transactions from their CLI wallets and inspecting network activity through the Block Explorer. Daylight takes this one step further and grows the node economy supporting the network, even though this is largely still in a protected environment, we aim to introduce malicious nodes and invite a small number of community participants to run their own node. This phase is an important step to ensure a smooth transition to a fully community-powered testnet as soon as possible.
We’d love the communities’ early involvement in transacting on the network, pressure-testing it for performance and user-experience improvements. So please take the new CLI wallet for a spin.
Get started now! Download the CLI Wallet
Testnet Daylight will require you to download the latest version of the CLI wallet.
The new CLI Wallet is available on Linux and macOS.
About Dusk Network
Dusk Network is the privacy blockchain for financial applications. A new standard for compliance, control, and collaboration. Our mission is to enable any size enterprise to collaborate at scale, meet compliance requirements and ensure that personal and transaction data remains confidential.