Ethereum developers have launched a testnet for the Shanghai upgrade, set to take place soon. The new chain will be called Medalla and its mainnet launch is scheduled soon. This is just one of many upgrades planned in 2022 as developers seek to improve scalability, privacy, governance, and other issues facing Ethereum today.
A testnet is a separate blockchain that developers can use to test new features before they are released to the mainnet.
The testnet launched by Ethereum developers is similar to the mainnet in many ways, but it does not necessarily serve as an exact replica of what will eventually become the real thing. For example, whereas miners currently earn rewards from mining on the mainnet (wherein they receive ETH), there are no incentives for miners operating on this new testnet. The purpose of this release is simply to allow developers and users alike time and space to experiment with everything that’s coming down the pipeline before anything actually goes live.
Ethereum Launches New Upgrade
As part of the Shanghai upgrade, a new chain called Medalla will be launched soon. This testnet will help to prepare for the change, which is expected to be implemented in 2022.
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has also explained that Medalla is named after a Greek poet who lived during the time of Alexander the Great. The name reflects how this new chain was built upon existing codebases that have been used in various projects throughout history.
The new chain will be able to handle more transactions per second than previous iterations of Ethereum and also allow developers to run their own sharding clients from home or in private networks without waiting for permission from anyone else; the ability to run your own client is something that has come up several times in conversations about privacy coins such as Monero (XMR) or zcash (ZEC).
