The Kiln Testnet Is in the Final Stages for the Merge

The Kiln Testnet was launched last weekend and is the last testnet before the merger. The roadmap shows the merge date for the first quarter itself, but the exact date has not yet been determined. According to Launchpad Tracker, Ethererum’s staking has exceeded 10 million. Kiln was the last testnet before the transition to Proof of Stake and was launched last week to replicate Ethereum’s Proof of Work chain with a beacon chain now known as the consensus layer.

Ethereum, one of the most well-known blockchain networks, merges the current Ethereum mainnet with the Beacon chain of the Ethereum 2.0 system. Ethereum node operators and developers have been testing merging in the kiln last weekend. And it seems to be working fine.

This kiln test net came after the Kintsugi test net launched last December to enable the first merge test.

According to developer Marius VanDer Wijden, the network is still a PoW model and the merge on the Kiln testnet could take place later this week. Beacon Chain Community Health Consultant Superphiz recently stated that Kiln Testnet is functioning as a temporary PoW chain along with PoS chains, similar to the current mainnet situation. And the kiln will perform a fusion this week to model its operation.

He added that he was honest. The kiln is one of the most important milestones in the Ethereum merger. The exact date of the merge has not yet been announced, as full testing is pending, but the roadmap states that it should be done in the first quarter itself. Therefore, it can occur the following month or so.

According to Beacon Chain Kiln Explorer data, the amount of ETH bet on the testnet is 3.39 million and the number of active validators is currently around 106,000. Ethereum’s staking has recently exceeded 10 million, according to Launchpad Tracker.

The timing of the merge and release of this testnet seems to be accurate, as the European Union does not seem to like people using the Proof of Work consensus algorithm because of its low energy efficiency. The vote will be held by the European Union on March 14 under the Cryptocurrency Markets Act (MiCA) and may lead to a ban on mining operations in the region.

Ethereum is a network that is currently working on the Proof of Work model, but is gradually moving to Proof of Stake. After fully switching to the PoS algorithm, we still don’t know how the coin will work.

Getting Started with Kiln Network

The easiest way to get started with the kiln is to visit the landing page of your network. So you can add a network to your browser wallet, display the block explorer, ask for money from the faucet and connect to the JSON-RPC endpoint. If you want to be a kiln validator, the Staking Ranch Pad will also support your network.

Application and Tooling Devs

Now that the kiln is up and running, it’s time to make sure the product works as expected in the proof of stake transition and post-merge context. As mentioned in a previous post, merging has minimal impact on a subset of the contracts deployed on Ethereum, but none of them are broken. In addition, most of the user API endpoints are stable (that is, unless you use PoW-specific methods such as eth_getWork).

However, most Ethereum applications include more than on-chain contracts. Kiln is the place to verify that front-end code, tools, deployment pipelines, and other off-chain components are working as intended. Developers are strongly encouraged to run a full test and deployment cycle in Kiln and report tool and dependency issues to the maintainers of those projects.

Node Operators

Post-merge, an Ethereum complete node might be the aggregate of a consensus layer client, which runs proof-of-stake at the Beacon Chain, and an execution layer client, which manages the user-kingdom and runs the computations related to transactions. These speak over an authenticated port the use of a brand new set of JSON RPC methods, referred to as the Engine API.

Therefore, the node operator must run both the consensus and the execution layer client at the same time. This means that if you were already running the node in the beacon chain, you must also be running the run layer client. Similarly, if you are running a node on your current Proof of Work network, you need to run a consensus layer client.
It should be emphasized that each tier maintains an independent set of peers and exposes its own API. As a result, both the Beacon API and the JSON RPC API continue to work as expected.

Stakers

As explained above, the merged beacon chain validator must run the run layer client. Pre-merge, which was highly recommended, but it was possible for validators to outsource these features to third parties. This was possible because the only data required at the execution level was a retention contract renewal.

The merged validator must ensure that the transactions within the block it creates and validates are valid. This requires an execution layer client. This expands the validator’s responsibilities while giving the validator who proposes the block the right to the associated transaction priority fee (currently paid to the miner).

Validator rewards are generated in the Beacon chain and subsequent upgrades must be withdrawn, but transaction fees will continue to be paid, burned and distributed at the execution layer. Therefore, the validator can specify any Ethereum address as the recipient of the transaction fee.

The kiln is the perfect environment for existing stackers to become familiar with the post-merging context of Ethereum. We recommend mirroring your production setup on the network to resolve the issue now.

You can now check some of the transactions on the Kiln Network by using the Kiln Explorer here.

Disclaimer: The opinion expressed here is not investment advice – it is provided for informational purposes only. It does not necessarily reflect the opinion of EGG Finance. Every investment and all trading involves risk, so you should always perform your own research prior to making decisions. We do not recommend investing money you cannot afford to lose.