Dear Celo Community,
Following the launch of the Celo Layer 2 testnet, Dango, we’re excited to share the progress and key learnings from the past four weeks. Our primary objectives were to test our migration strategy, provide integrators with the necessary space to upgrade their infrastructure, and offer the community a first glimpse of the new system in action.
In this post, we’ll recap the major events and milestones, highlight successes and challenges, and look ahead to the next steps towards the Celo mainnet L2 upgrade, including the upcoming testnet launch of Alfajores L2. Your continued participation and feedback have been invaluable, and we’re eager to keep the momentum going as we prepare for the next phase.
Progress and Key Learnings from the Dango Testnet
Over the past four weeks, the Celo Layer 2 testnet, Dango, has provided an essential environment for testing our migration strategy and implementation. This period allowed integrators to begin upgrading their infrastructure while offering the community an early experience of the new system.
During this phase, we successfully integrated Blockscout, which enabled detailed blockchain exploration. We also included SuperBridge in the testnet, allowing participants to experience seamless token bridging. These additions were key in showcasing the capabilities and improvements of our new L2 infrastructure.
While the testnet phase brought several successes, including early feedback from the community, we also encountered some challenges. Issues with the RPC on history migration and snap sync were reported and promptly addressed to enhance stability and functionality. We are also working on optimizing the integration of EigenDA to improve throughput, a critical factor for efficient data availability.
The level of engagement and enthusiasm for the Celo Layer 2 testnet, Dango, has been strong. With the Alfajores L2 upgrade on the horizon, we will continue to seek community input and encourage integrators to start upgrading their infrastructure.
Next Steps
Now that Dango has been around we feel confident that we can upgrade our main developer testnet, Alfajores, and allow builders to start building on what is the future of Celo. This also paves the way for our developer tooling partners to upgrade to support the Celo Layer 2 stack, especially those who can only support one testnet at a time.
We are aiming to perform this upgrade to Alfajores in late September. The upgrade will be performed as a hardfork with an additional chain data migration step; all full node operators, including archive node operators, will need to upgrade their clients and perform a chain migration step. Projects built on top of Alfajores will likely only need to point their dApps to RPC nodes that have upgraded.
We encourage third parties to start preparing for the upgrade in advance. You may do so by experimenting with the Dango testnet. If you are not running a full node, this upgrade will likely be seamless for you, though we encourage you to reach out to your partners to ensure they are also prepared.
Please rely on the forum and the github discussion space to stay informed and reach out with any questions. We also highly value your continued participation and feedback via these same channels.
Conclusion
We want to express our sincere gratitude to the community, developers, and all contributors who have supported us throughout the Dango testnet phase. Your enthusiasm and involvement have been crucial to our progress.
As we move forward, we’ll provide links to essential resources and documentation to help navigate the transition. We encourage you to continue sharing your feedback and reporting any issues to ensure a smooth experience.