Hard Fork 14 Testnet

Hard Fork 14 is coming. 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.

Hard Fork 14 brings smaller, more efficient transactions (CLSAG signatures and Bulletproofs+), stronger privacy through a larger anonymity set, and an evolved fair-mining algorithm (CryptoNight-Adaptive v7) that keeps mining competitive on ordinary CPUs.

A multi-step process

Hard Fork 14 is a large upgrade with several separate changes, so we are not testing it all at once. Rushing everything into a single testnet would make it impossible to tell which change caused a problem if something breaks. Instead, we are running several testnets, before a final combined run.

• Round 1: new transactions and mining algorithm. CLSAG signatures, Bulletproofs+, and CryptoNight-Adaptive v7 together (PR #117). Complete.
• Round 2: larger ring size. Raises the ring size from 5 to 16 for a bigger anonymity set (PR #124). Testing now.
• Potentially more rounds. If there are any other consensus changes.

We will announce each round as it opens, and this page will be updated as we progress. There is no fixed deadline. We move to the next step only when the current one is proven stable.

Right now we are on Round 2. This round raises the ring size from 5 to 16. The ring size is how many decoys are mixed with the real coin you spend, so a larger ring means a larger anonymity set and stronger privacy. In return, each transaction gets bigger: a CLSAG input grows from 224 to 576 bytes, so a typical two-in two-out send goes from about 1,461 to 2,209 bytes and pays roughly 50% more fee. That trade-off is the whole point of this round, and seeing the larger, slightly more expensive transactions go through is exactly what we are confirming.

Because the new ring-size rule rejects the older, smaller-ring transactions above the fork, this round runs on a brand new testnet chain. Testnet starts fresh from block 0 and activates Hard Fork 14 at block 1000. Difficulty starts at the floor, so mining with a single CPU core is enough to build the chain, cross the fork, and send transactions.

Note: multisig is disabled in this release, and Ledger hardware wallet support is not available for Hard Fork 14. If you rely on either, now is the time to yell very loudly.

1. Download the Round 2 testnet build

Grab the build for your platform. Keep it separate from your mainnet install. You must use this Round 2 build, an earlier testnet build cannot build or accept the larger-ring transactions.

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

2. Prefer source or other platforms?

The Round 2 change lives in pull request #124. 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

Check you are on the right build before syncing. Type status in the daemon console and confirm it reports software version 0.3.0.0-42dbf71f0. An older or wrong build reports a different commit and will fork off onto a dead chain, this is the most common cause of “I can’t sync” reports.

If the node has trouble finding peers, add a known testnet node:

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 Hard Fork 14 at block 1000. In the daemon console:

start_mining <your_testnet_address> 1

Let it run past block 1000, then send some transactions and confirm they are accepted on the new, larger ring size.

What to test (Round 2)

• Mine with a single CPU core to help build the chain from block 0 across Hard Fork 14 (block 1000)
• After the fork, send transfers between testnet wallets, with single and multiple recipients, and confirm they go through
• Run a sweep (send your whole balance to one address) after the fork and confirm it builds and sends
• Confirm that transactions made after the fork are noticeably larger and pay a bit more fee than before, this is the expected cost of the larger ring, not a bug
• Create a wallet and restore a wallet from seed, including a rescan across the fork
• Confirm a fresh node syncs cleanly from block 0 all the way past the fork, and reaches the same top block as everyone else
• 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 14. Every node and every platform we cover makes the mainnet fork safer.