The Ethereum blockchain’s Kintsugi testnet is officially live and it’s set to integrate the Ethereum mainnet and beacon chain by Q2 2022. It is a public testnet that will replace Ethereum’s proof of work consensus with a proof of stake mechanism.
Kintsugi: A step towards Ethereum’s merge
Ethereum 2.0 is a long-awaited improvement to the Ethereum network. Kintsugi testnet is the latest development in the Ethereum roadmap. The blockchain’s teams have been working hard to prepare for Ethereum 2.0, the proof of stake platform that will enable faster, cheaper, and less energy-intensive blockchain transactions.
Ethereum 2.0 isn’t ready yet, but its first major testnet, Kintsugi is, giving the public a view of how the network may soon function.
Kintsugi’s aim is to integrate the mainnet and beacon chain, and to generate a more efficient and scalable blockchain. Kintsugi derives its name from the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery using gold, without an attempt of hiding the damage. Instead, it highlights the repairs as part of the history of the item. The word invokes a sense of openness in the history of anything.
The leader of Ethereum’s major developers, Tim Beiko, talked about the Kintsugi testnet today on the Ethereum Foundation blog.
He said, “Although client development and UX still be refined, we encourage the community to start out using Kintsugi to familiarize themselves with Ethereum during a post-merge context.”
He further said, “For application developers, as previously explained, not much will change. Tooling which only interacts with either the consensus or execution layer is additionally largely unaffected.”
Ethereum’s 2.0 merge in 2022
Ethereum’s mainnet and beacon chain merge will officially take place in Q1/Q2 of 2022. Ethereum is now in beta, and developers should test it and give feedback. Then the network will shift to the next stage of development which includes sharding. After successful implementation, this feature will improve the network’s scalability by ensuring fast transactions and low fees.
Tim Beiko posted the launch on Twitter and asked the community for help with testing. He noted, “Over the past few months, client teams are working tirelessly to implement a replacement set of merge milestones. They are now live on a new testnet: Kintsugi. Here’s how you’ll join the testnet and help with testing: https://blog.ethereum.org/2021/12/20/kin.”
Once developers test and find everything stable, Ethereum’s mainnet will switch to proof of stake. It will be interesting to see how Ethereum will stack up against bitcoin in 2022.
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