The ITN may not die after all
In a twist of fate, the Cardano Incentivized Testnet (ITN) which was scheduled to be shut off today, may be out of death row and continue to exist, even past the upcoming Shelley main net release of July 29, 2020. Addressing the community through youtube, Cardano founder and IOHK CEO Charles Hoskinson has recently proposed an idea concerning keeping the Cardano ITN ongoing as opposed to shutting it off as was previously planned.
Charles asks those ITN stake pools operators who wish to see the ITN continue life to simply keep their pools live and operating, therefore keep making blocks for the days to come and if 2/3 of the ITN stake pools continue to operate past today then the ITN development team will submit a proposal to modify the monetary policy of the ITN to continue paying testnet ADA rewards till July 29, 2020.
What will happen in the time between today and July 29th?
Charles continues to explain that in the mean time IOHK and the ITN development team will come up with a Roadmap of how the ITN can be used as an Experimental Platform, which he later rephrases Experimental Platform to Rapid Prototyping Chain for the Cardano mainet. He continues to say that he can think of a number of options in which the ITN could be repurposed for, such as reintroducing Yella (Cardano Virtual machine intended for dapps when Gougen arrives), use it as an Oracle chain or use it as a De-Fi and governance service platform.
Beyond July 29th
If the ITN community votes "YES" by 2/3 of stake pool operators continue to run their pools past today then the development team is planning to let the Cardano ITN have it own "economic value". In this, Charles explains that at time they plan for Cardano mainet and the Cardano ITN to "exist in a sort of a Bitcoin/Litecoin situation".
Many will remember that Litecoin (which is essentially a clone of Bitcoin) was launched in 2011 to function as the "silver altenative" for the already existing "Gold", Bitcoin.
Afterwards he added that at that point, they also consider the Cardano ITN to have its own listings on exchanges, so very soon we may see Cardano ITN on binance!
The vote
The proposal for the Cardano ITN hardfork upgrade will be out in a few days as promised, provided that the ITN continues to be live past today. Then there will be a command line mechanism for all ITN-Ada holders to vote on the proposal, both stake pool operators and delegators. Charles Hoskinson says that more details about how to vote for the hardfork proposal will be announced soon.
Will the continued life of the ITN compromise the value of Ada?
In the announcement Charles clarifies that whatever will come to fruition with the continued life of the ITN will not affect the monetary policy of Cardano mainet. He takes time to explain that there are currently 31 bn Ada in circulation, with a max supply of 45 bn Ada leaving about 14 bn Ada yet to be minted through staking. He assures the community that "no new ada will be created" with this coming development on the ITN and that the ADA chain value will not be "split".
Charles promises that the new repurposed ITN will continue to Incentivize it's community
Among the last things that Charles says in the broadcast is that after Cardano ITN has been repurposed to function as a "test bed" for mainet, specifically after it morphs into the Rapid Prototyping Chain for cardano mainet, then the development team will come up with the way to continue to incentivize the community. More details on this will be released as we approach July 29th.
Finally, Charles bids Goodbye by telling the community, "ON or OFF, you decide".
Conclusion
I imagine that this is going to be very good news for most of the cardano community members, especially those who also hold ITN-ADA. I am personally impressed with this new direction that has been proposed for the Cardano ITN, and hope to see even bigger things happening as we approach July 29th and beyond. A few days ago I posted on this blog an article titled "Cardano ITN: What is to become of it after the balance check" in which I speculated on what may happen to the ITN after Shelley release and I am truly glad to be able to make a follow-up article on the issue. Below is a link for the article:
Do you own ITN-ADA? Be sure to vote when the time comes.
