Holešovice Testnet Project

Research & Protocol Improvements
1

As part of my work across the Ethereum ecosystem, I’m currently supporting a project known as Holešovice Testnet. The project asks the question “what is the future of the future” in terms of base-layer blockchain infrastructure.

During EthPrague hackathon, the project upgraded the Execution Layer of Ethereum to use Verkle Trees (instead of Merkle Trees), a change which will enable trustless light-clients, and make Ethereum more accessible (e.g. to IoT devices, cameras, microphones, smart watches, fridges, etc).

The project currently aims to:

  1. Launch the Holešovice Testnet in time for EthBerlin Hackathon in September 2022.
  2. Create a framework for launching a series of ephemeral testnets to create a form of cadence to delivery in the web3 ecosystem.

Current work involves deployment of the staking deposit contract, to allow a Holešovice Beaconchain, so that the testnet can go through it’s own “The Merge”. This is required for both 1 and 2.

Ephemeral Testnets

The sketch of the concept, is to build the “public good” tooling to launch new “ephemeral testnets” on every new moon (for example). This would create a 28-day cycle, which can divide into e.g. 4 x 7 day sprints, or 2 x 10 day sprints, with 8 rest days. It is inspired by the concept of 12-second slot/block times after the merge.

The concept would mean that builders can start using these 28-day “slots” to start working through the backlog of ideas and features and bugs and refactoring etc, in ways which begin to coordinate with other builders.

New testnet launches could be built using data (scripts, code, assets) stored in chainstate from previous testnet, thus somehow “chaining the testnets together”, while at the same time bonding the builders together.

Links

Hackathon Project: Holešovice Testnet | Devpost
Github Repo: GitHub - holesovice-testnet/go-ethereum
Webpage: https://holesovice.dev

Thanks @ericxtang for encouraging me to share this with Livepeer Community.

2

Adding link to the project’s Discord.

3

There is an update on these efforts regarding new experiments in testnets.

The “Ephemery” testnet (working title) is in its 25th iteration, currently resetting every 2 days.

It provides an ultralight-weight public test environment, which resets to genesis every 2 days, using current configuration.

The testnet is currently seeking clients to increase the number of tests available on the network. If your protocol already has automated deployment scripts then this can become very easily included.

The network is EVM-compliant, and aims to encourage rapid iteration and testing of the end-to-end Ethereum stack.

Find out more here.