New testnet launched: Esmeralda

The dibbler testnet has been running since January 2022, but there are new features in the development branch that are not in dibbler. Because adding these features to dibbler would have required a development heavy hardfork, and we’ve already successfully tested hardforks in dibbler, the development community decided to save time and create a new testnet instead.

Those features are now significant enough to start testing, and we’re proud to annouce a new testnet Esmeralda (Genesis Block is 30 August 2022). For those of you mining, Dibbler will continue to run, side-by-side with Esmeralda. There are still two Lambos up for grabs in the Tari Testnet Limited store, which will continue to use dibbler tXTR. Just a reminder, these are still testnet coins, and don’t have a market value.

To run esmeralda, you can either compile from source using the development branch, or download a binary from the website or Github with a version v0.37 or higher. (Dibbler binaries will still be available).

Some of the new features in Esmeralda:

• Bulletproofs+ - Bulletproofs, but better. Smaller than regular BPs, and with batch verification of range proofs, full-block validation times are something like 60% quicker. 😮
• Stealth addresses - Tari brought one-sided payments to Mimblewimble. Stealth addresses make the privacy trade-off much smaller. 🕶️
• Tari 🔥 burn 🔥 transactions. Why would you want to do this? Find out more