Hard Fork 13 Testnet

Hard Fork 13 is almost ready. Before it goes live on mainnet, we need your help testing it on testnet. Testnet is a separate, isolated network: the coins have no value and nothing you do there touches the real chain. It is the safest place to find problems before the fork.

HF13 brings a reworked, more memory-bound mining algorithm (CryptoNight-Adaptive v6) and much faster initial sync. You can read the details in our Hard Fork 13 overview.

Testnet starts fresh from block 0 and activates the fork at a low height (block 2100). Difficulty starts at the floor, so by mining with a single CPU core you can help build the chain, cross the fork, and send transactions in minutes. The more machines and operating systems we cover, the more confident we can be.

1. Download the testnet build

Grab the build for your platform. Keep it separate from your mainnet install.

Other platforms (ARMv7 / ARMv8, FreeBSD, iOS, 32-bit) are available from the GitHub build below.

2. Prefer source or other platforms?

All of the changes live in pull request #101. You can review the code, build it yourself, or download the per-platform CI artifacts from the latest successful run linked in that PR.

3. Run a testnet node

Start the daemon with the --testnet flag. It uses its own data directory and ports, so it will not touch your mainnet node.

nervad --testnet

If the node has trouble finding peers, add a known testnet node (check the Discord for current addresses):

nervad --testnet --add-priority-node 74.208.52.101:18565

4. Create a testnet wallet

Open the CLI wallet in testnet mode and create a new wallet when prompted. It will connect to your local testnet daemon.

nerva-wallet-cli --testnet

5. Mine to build the chain and cross the fork

Because testnet starts fresh from block 0, difficulty is very low and a single CPU core is plenty to mine blocks quickly. Mining is how the chain grows, how you get test coins, and how we reach and cross HF13 at block 2100. One core is the way to go. In the daemon console:

start_mining <your_testnet_address> 1

Let it run past block 2100, then confirm the daemon keeps accepting and producing blocks on the new algorithm. The more people mining with a core each, the faster the chain reaches the fork and the more the new algorithm gets exercised across different hardware.

What to test

• Mine with a single CPU core to help build the chain from block 0
• Confirm blocks keep coming both before and after HF13 (block 2100)
• Send a few transfers between testnet wallets
• Open and refresh a wallet, and check that balances are correct
• Try it on different operating systems and hardware

If anything breaks, a crash, a stuck sync, a rejected block, or a wallet error, that is exactly what we want to hear about.

How to report results

Thank you for helping test Hard Fork 13. Every node and every platform we cover makes the mainnet fork safer.