Cardano is opening Shelley TestNet for all pool operators

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Written on Jun 9, 2020

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Cardano is not yet ready to launch its Shelley protocol on the mainnet, but it did just upon its testnet.
Now, any staking pool operator can join the testnet and test Shelley for themselves.
There are still plenty of bugs to be fixed, but pioneers seem very satisfied with the overall progress.

Cardano (ADA) recently saw quite a bit of price activity after its founder, Charles Hoskinson, revealed a date of Shelley protocol integration. Shelley will officially arrive at Cardano blockchain on July 7th. For now, however, the protocol remains on the Cardano testnet.

However, a new announcement revealed that Cardano will now allow access to Shelley on testnet for all pool operators starting today, June 9th.

Cardano grants open access to its testnet

The launch of the protocol will start a new phase in Cardano’s history, and it represents a major change for the project — a whole new era. The testnet was previously only open to a select group of around 50 stake pool operators.

Now, the project is opening its door to all pool operators willing to join in and test it out for themselves.

According to Tim Harrison, who acts as a marketing and communications director for IOHK, the testnet is ready to enter its final phase of testing. Naturally, this will bring the network closer to its mainnet release.

Harrison made his announcement in a video posted on Twitter.

Tomorrow, the 9th June, we’re entering a new phase for Cardano. The Shelley public testnet will open up so any operator that wants to set up a #Cardano stake pool can do so, ready for staking and delegation on mainnet later this summer #ShelleyTestnets @Cardano pic.twitter.com/XlTqht6jPg

— Input Output (@InputOutputHK) June 8, 2020

He revealed that any stake pool operator is free to join the testnet, which includes those who ran stake pools on Shelley ITN (Incentivized Testnet).

There is still work to do, but there is clear progress

Users who do join will be able to test things like delegation, as well as stake pool operating. Further, they will get to learn how to use and navigate the network. There are already over 60 pools, according to Harrison, who hopes that more users would join up in days to come.

He did point out that the experience likely will not be what most people would call ‘smooth sailing.’ There are still plenty of bugs to be resolved, even though the network is close to reaching the mainnet.

Even so, Cardano. head of delivery, Christopher Greenwood, recently spoke about all the progress made on Shelley. He said that pioneers are ‘overwhelmingly’ satisfied with the experience and the progress that was made. They went through all the exercises, and most have reported encountering ‘cosmetic’ bugs only.