RCnet v3 is now live. This is the last major test network release prior to the Babylon upgrade of mainnet!
As of this release, developers can build & test with the knowledge that if it runs on RCnet v3, it’s going to run on Babylon.
What’s New?
As you might expect, not a whole lot has changed since RCnet v2 from a consumer perspective, as most of the stack has been focused on stabilization and small tweaks.
Naturally, there are new preview builds of the Radix Wallet, as well as RCnet v3-compatible versions for the host of associated developer tools:
→ Installing the Radix Wallet Preview & Connector Extension
→ Radix dApp Toolkit
→ Radix Engine Toolkit
→ Gateway API
→ Dashboard
Anything for Scrypto Developers?
While Scrypto has been feature-complete since RCnet v2, the team has been paying close attention to community feedback, and the big news to announce is that an entire new unit testing framework has been developed and rolled out. The new framework enables much more rapid creation of tests which don’t wish to concern themselves with describing an entire transaction, allowing developers to write narrowly targeted test scenarios and easily set up the appropriate pre- and post-conditions. For integration-level testing, the existing test runner framework is, of course, still present.
Decimal-related types for fixed precision math have also gotten an overhaul in response to feedback, both to support more real-world scenarios with the built-in types and to ensure that the compiler can enforce proper handling of potential overflow scenarios.
While some RCnet v2 applications will transition straight to RCnet v3 without any updates, there have been many small adjustments; please see the release notes for the full details.
RCnet v3 Q&A
Does RCnet v3 have “real” tokens and applications on it that will become part of mainnet?
No, it is strictly a test network, and everything on it will eventually vanish.
Will there be additional test releases prior to Babylon go-live?
While there may be another interim release or two with under-the-hood changes to RCnet v3, there won’t be another major release.
Is more data coming about the Olympia to Babylon migration?
There are currently two blogs around this subject:
Babylon Automatic Migration Guide
Final Olympia Protocol Update Released
Closer to the switchover, you can expect another article which goes into some more detail about what happens on the big day.
Will there be a long-running Stokenet test network for Babylon?
Yes, a Babylon Stokenet will be spun up around the time of Babylon go-live. It is expected to be a fresh network, without any state from the Olympia-based Stokenet.
I’m preparing an application for release with Babylon, where can I get my questions answered?
Best place to ask is always in the Scrypto channel on Discord!