HOPR Basòdino: A Better, Bigger, Braver Testnet
The HOPR Säntis testnet wrapped on October 6th, with more than 500 people running nodes and claiming a HOPR token prize. Now, just two weeks later, we’re back with our next release. Continuing the theme of naming releases after mountains in Switzerland (HOPR’s home country), our newest testnet is called Basòdino.
In addition to greatly improved stability, Basòdino introduces multi-hop messaging and the first hands-on experience of the payment channels and reward tickets that power HOPR’s proof-of-relay system.
Like last time, anyone who participates in the testnet will be eligible for a share of a 200,000 HOPR prize fund.
HOPR Basòdino will be open for registration from 3pm CEST on Tuesday October 20th, with the scoring system going live 24hrs later. The testnet will then run for two full weeks, until 3pm CEST on Wednesday November 4th.
Read the press release here.
New Features: Multi-Hop and Proof-of-Relay
Thanks to the data we gathered and the amazing feedback from our community during Säntis, Basòdino improves on our previous testnet in a number of ways. The first is vastly improved network stability, which should eliminate the problems users had registering and interacting with our testnet bots.
But the most important is the introduction of multi-hop messaging and features from HOPR’s proof-of-relay system. You can now open and fund payment channels with testnet HOPR tokens, and send messages which hop via one or more nodes before reaching their destination. If you act as a relay node, you’ll earn tickets, which can be redeemed for testnet HOPR.
Like Säntis, you’ll still earn points by interacting with our CoverBot and relaying cover traffic. This time, however, the process will be much closer to the proof-of-relay system which HOPR will use when mainnet launches. As always, you can find out more in our docs.
HOPR AVADO Node Support
We’re also delighted to announce that Basòdino adds full support for HOPR AVADO nodes, so anyone with a plug-and-play HOPR Node PC or other AVADO box running HOPR will be able to register and participate. All you’ll have to do is update your HOPR dApp on your AVADO node and fund it with at least 0.02 MATIC and you’ll be ready to start.
Matic Network
The other big difference is that Basòdino is running on the Matic Network, not xDAI. As part of our mission to strengthen the web3 ecosystem, we’re delighted to collaborate with many different projects as we build our various testnets.
For users, this change won’t make much difference. Your nodes will have a new native token, MATIC, but everything else will work the same way. To get MATIC, you can either follow the instructions in our docs or ask one of our HOPR ambassadors in Telegram or Discord who will then fund your node.
The new proof-of-relay features spend small amounts of MATIC because they interact with the HOPR smart contract on the Matic blockchain. But the costs are still minimal: just 0.02 MATIC should be enough to participate. There’s also a new withdrawal feature which will let you withdraw any MATIC and HOPR tokens (although bear in mind that this is merely educational: HOPR has no value and won’t be used after this testnet).
Prizes
Basòdino comes with a 200,000 HOPR prize fund. As with Säntis, prizes will be awarded based on points earned throughout the testnet, with the top 200 scorers earning a prize and a top prize of 40,000 HOPR!
Points are primarily earned by relaying traffic from our CoverBot, although as before there may be other ways to earn points, such as providing feedback, so stay tuned in our Telegram and Discord.
Although the testnet replicates many mechanisms from our eventual mainnet, it’s important to stress that the testnet HOPR token on Matic is not our final HOPR token. It’s completely separate, and can’t be bought or sold or transferred for HOPR. It’s just for this testnet, and has no value. HOPR prizes will be issued after the HOPR mainnet launch on Ethereum.
Getting Started with Basòdino
To register for the testnet, simply head to https://network.hoprnet.org and follow the instructions. You can also head to our docs for a more detailed walkthrough.
To provide for a more relaxed experience, registration will open at 3pm CET on Tuesday October 20th, but there will be a 24hr buffer, so it won’t be possible to start relaying traffic and earning points until 3pm CET on Wednesday October 21st. (And of course it will be possible to register at any point after that as well.) Basòdino will run until 3pm CET on Wednesday November 4th, at which point the leaderboard will be frozen and HOPR prizes will be assigned based on the final scores.
Like before, you’ll need to link your HOPR testnet address to our bot by sending a tweet with your address, the #Basodino hashtag and tagging @hoprnet, and then send the URL of this tweet to the bot.
The testnet runs on the Matic Network, and you’ll need a small amount of MATIC to participate. The MATIC will need to be in the Ethereum address associated with your HOPR address, which can be found in the HOPR Chat client. You can find instructions for getting MATIC in our docs, or you can ask on Telegram or Discord and one of our team will be happy to fund your node.
If you need assistance, please join our Discord for support. We still have a few HOPR Hardware Nodes available for purchase. More information can be found here. The HOPR Hardware Node is an ideal way to participate, but it’s definitely not required.
Happy testing!
