The Ethereum Foundation has officially announced that ETH developers have launched today on August 4, 2020, the final testnet of Ethereum 2.0 “Medalla” prior to its mainnet launch. The launch of the Ethereum 2.0 mainnet is expected to occur later this year sometime in the month of November. One day before the launch of the final testnet, several ETH tokens were staked for activating the network by node operators.
Medalla testnet launch marks the final step towards ETH2.0 launch
Ethereum developers have been working on the last testnet of ETH 2.0 known as “Medalla” which has now gone live successfully today at 1 PM UTC. Medalla is a public testnet unlike the other testnets of Ethereum 2.0.
Reportedly, more than 20,000 validators were there who joined the network while five clients Sigma Prime’s Lighthouse, Prysmatic Labs’ Prysm, Status’ Nimbus, PegaSys’ Teku, and ChainSafe’s Lodestar have also joined Medalla as well.
Importance of the Medalla Testnet
The public testnet Medalla is very important for the Ethereum 2.0 mainnet as it has a lot of significant features of the mainnet. Danny Ryan one of the main ETH developers says that for ETH 2.0’s development and growth, the Medalla testnet’s launch is of great significance and it is a major milestone for Ethereum.
Adding more to it, Danny Ryan stated:
“The launch of Medalla is a huge milestone in the development of eth2 – if Medalla proves stable, mainnet launch is next – and represents years of hardwork by countless engineers, researchers, and community members. We hope you are as excited as we are :).”
However, though the Medalla testnet has gone live, it is not set for controlling real value and validators nodes cannot churn out profits from it at the moment. According to the Ethereum Foundation, this last testnet will be used as a practice for organizing validators before the official mainnet launch of ETH 2.0 takes place.
The launch of the Ethereum 2.0 mainnet is expected to occur in November. This upgrade is very significant for the Ethereum network as it will make the network more efficient and scalable.