Alonzo Update

We’re continuing to make good progress with the rollout program and this week we’ve started onboarding new SPOs and developers to join #AlonzoWhite. Here’s an update to share how we're rolling!

To recap, we're building out the remaining #Goguen #Smartcontracts capability via a series of color-coded testnets, supported by the #Cardano community. We're adding new community testers as we go, steadily adding new users as we add functionality, test, iterate & improve.

On Monday, we asked our #AlonzoBlue community testing team to nominate and bring new members into the program (a mix of experienced SPOs and developers) ready for #AlonzoWhite. We’ve now also invited and started onboarding these new users.

We are also now inviting funded #ProjectCatalyst projects building #Plutus applications, and selected development partners to get set up for a new hard fork and #AlonzoWhite testnet deployment.

We’ve spun up the new #AlonzoWhite network and faucet, and this/next week we’ll start to grow the #Alonzo test program user base from c.50 SPOs/external developers to an initial 250 or so. This number will steadily scale to 500+ over the next few weeks.

On Friday, we’ll host a briefing session for all the #AlonzoWhite team members, where we’ll walk through all the steps required to join the network and take any initial questions on the process.

Once onboarded, new users will be invited to set up their node and complete the test exercises/ scripts provided. We’ll leave #AlonzoBlue running for a short while after we fork to #AlonzoWhite to let people finish up any testing before we fully retire that network.

With #AlonzoWhite we will also introduce updated versions of our middle-tier components (inc. Cardano wallet, db-sync, graphql, rosetta) and early limited-function versions of the Plutus backend. This will give us valuable early feedback on utility.

Concurrently, the QA team is assessing additional improvements to the Node CLI and #Plutus interpreter, which we plan to deploy soon.

We'll then share new exercises, covering enhanced capabilities in areas such as advanced scripting, setting fees, minting tokens, and more.

For more information on these exercises, which we're adding as we go, check out this GitHub repo: https://github.com/input-output-hk/Alonzo-testnet

During the #AlonzoWhite phase, we will also invite third parties that integrate with Cardano to test the compatibility of their systems with the new components (inc. selected exchanges).

Thanks to all our technical community – especially our original #AlonzoBlue team and now our #AlonzoWhite team for the support as we enter the next exciting phase in the testnets rollout. We'll continue to bring on new devs and partners over the weeks ahead.

Thanks as ever to our friends Emurgo & Cardano Foundation also on the journey. And to all the #Cardano community for your support along the way. As ever, we’ll keep you abreast of all things #Alonzo in our short mid-month video updates.

The next video update will land on YouTube next Friday 15th July). So be sure to subscribe and click the YouTube bell and be the first to see these and our monthly #Cardano360 show (on the last Thursday of each month).

Thanks all. Onwards!