The Road To Acurast Mainnet
We have been building over the last couple of months and have exciting news to share. For starters, we would like to explain what model and philosophy the Acurast Association is implementing when it comes to supporting protocols. Then we will touch on the rollout of the networks mentioned.
The Three Acurast Networks
The Acurast protocol exists in three distinct networks supported by the Acurast Association, each with an individual token:
- Acurast Testnet: The test network uses tokens with no governance and no staking utility. The service level provided is for test applications and experimental Proof-of-Concepts. The Acurast Testnet provides instant update cycles, whenever the code is ready, following the philosophy “Build, Break, and Fix Faster”. Testnet updates do not require governance, the Testnet is linked to the Rococo relay network.
- Acurast Canary: The canary network uses tokens with governance and staking utility. The service level provided is for production-grade applications. Acurast Canary provides shorter update cycles than the Mainnet, and also faster releases and deprecation of features. The canary network follows quarterly update cycles with a 9-month support span. Forkless network upgrades are activated and validated through the Canary network’s governance process, and it is linked to the Kusama relay network.
- Acurast Mainnet: The Acurast Mainnet uses tokens with governance and staking utility. The service level provided is for production-grade applications. The Mainnet follows yearly update cycles including features only after thorough battle testing on the Acurast Canary with a long-term support span of 5 years. The Mainnet also follows forkless upgrades activated through the Mainnet governance process and it is linked to the Polkadot relay network.
From Acurast Testnet to Acurast Canary
The Acurast Testnet was already launched on 07/06/2023, 13:53:18, and successfully attached to the Rococo relay network. Users can interact with the Testnet using PolkadotJS or through the Acurast Console, and receive Testnet tokens through the Console from the faucet.
In the Kusama Auction 76, the Acurast Association acquired a Kusama slot marking the first step for the launch of Acurast Canary.
Acurast Canary will launch in multiple phases:
Pre-Net
Launching on this year’s programmer’s day on September 13th, 2023.
The Pre-Net will launch without the governance process and will have the Acurast Association’s collators producing blocks. Since there is no block reward, there will be no inflation in this phase. The purpose of this phase is to allow Developers and Processors to onboard and start exchanging their resources, all while providing a production-grade service level. During the pre-net phase, the governance and token transfers will remain disabled and no active transferring of tokens is expected at this stage.
Therefore, developers permisionless access to compute that is trustless, affordable and confidential.
Alpha-Net
Launching later this year. The purpose of this phase is to onboard external Collators and enable nominated Proof of Stake for the selection of those Collators.
Comparable to Curve’s voted escrow model, the stake weight is based on the user’s selected lock time duration of the stake provided. The exact mechanics will be outlined in a future blog post.
With the activation of the Alpha-Net, the block production will be rewarded, the rewards will be paid out of the Acurast protocol’s adaptive inflation model. Sudo will remain active for this phase.
Beta-Net
With an ETA of 2 months post-Alpha-Net launch. This phase removes sudo and migrates governance to the active stakers and enables token transfers.
Acurast Canary will pave the road for the Acurast Mainnet launch going forward.
What can you do?
Help us test Acurast, as a developer start testing out Acurast and the computational resources that you can access through the Acurast Console.
Become a Processor with one of the supported mobile devices and start earning rewards!
Or you can just help us spread the word on Acurast, make sure to check out our Zealy Quest and join the Acurast community.
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