Introducing "Beta-1", the First Modular Execution Layer Developer-facing Fuel Testnet

Today, we are excited to announce the launch of the new Fuel beta-1 testnet!

This marks a new milestone in our road towards Fuel mainnet—a modular execution layer (MEL) that will provide never-before-seen scalability to Ethereum with parallel transaction execution. The result will be a blockchain with maximum security and the highest flexible throughput for the Ethereum ecosystem.

Please note that beta-1 is not an incentivized testnet. There will be no direct rewards for participation in this network.

The Testnet

While local-development Fuel networks have been available for months, the beta-1 network is the first public Fuel testnet, shared by all developers and users that interact with it. Developers may deploy contracts to it at will—no permission or whitelisting required—and users may interact with deployed contracts as well.

Network Features

Below is a list of key features for the beta-1 testnet:

🤝 Single shared network. This is a shared, public developer- and user-facing testnet. Developers can deploy contracts and users can then interact with those contracts.

🚰 Faucet. Anyone can use the faucet to get some test ETH to deploy contracts with or to interact with contracts. Available here: https://faucet-beta-1.fuel.network.

📃 GraphQL endpoint. The Fuel Core node uses GraphQL instead of JSON RPC. A playground for the public GraphQL endpoint for beta-1 is available at https://node-beta-1.fuel.network/playground.

✔️ No whitelists. Developers can deploy contracts to the testnet, permissionlessly. Users can interact with contracts, permissionlessly.

🔍 Block explorer. A block explorer (still heavily a work-in-progress) is available at https://fuellabs.github.io/block-explorer-v2.

If you have any questions (development-related or otherwise), you can join the Fuel Labs Discord and head to the 🧪︱testnet-beta-1 channel. Be sure to follow our Twitter for updates. Fuel Labs will host a community call soon to discuss the latest details around beta-1. So stay tuned for that.  

For Developers

A few months ago, we launched the SwaySwap demo along with an internal testnet that users could interact with, but for which contracts could not be deployed.

Contract deployment to the beta-1 testnet does not require any whitelisting. A valid transaction is required however, which requires coins. Testnet ETH can be obtained from the faucet: https://faucet-beta-1.fuel.network by completing a captcha.

A persistent CLI wallet is available here: https://github.com/FuelLabs/forc-wallet. Note that currently it requires building from source. A web/browser plugin wallet is under active development, with contributions welcome: https://github.com/FuelLabs/fuels-wallet.

For an overview of Fuel, take a look at The Fuel documentation: https://fuellabs.github.io/fuel-docs/master/index.html

To begin building on Fuel, check out the Developer Quickstart. This guide walks developers through building a dapp, end-to-end: https://fuellabs.github.io/fuel-docs/master/developer-quickstart.html

To begin developing a contract for Fuel, take a look at The Sway Book: https://fuellabs.github.io/sway/latest/, along with the Rust SDK (https://github.com/FuelLabs/fuels-rs) and TypeScript SDK (https://github.com/FuelLabs/fuels-ts).

If you're interested in going even further, we're supporting early-stage projects with our grants program, available here: https://1v1l4ftv9zy.typeform.com/fuelgrants.

Note that the beta-1 testnet is under active development and may see breaking upgrades and even regenesis events (hence beta-1 and not beta!) in the coming weeks.

For Community Members

Community members can participate in beta-1 by testing applications. Since this is the launch of a new network, there will be no applications to start, but keep your eyes and ears open to the Fuel Labs Twitter for announcements of applications test launches. A list of applications in development is maintained here: https://github.com/FuelLabs/awesome-fuel#projects-building-on-fuel. Please contribute any missing applications to the list!

As mentioned above, beta-1 is not an incentivized testnet; there will be no direct incentives for participation in this network.

Beyond Monolithic

Right now, there is an ongoing and significant shift happening in layer-1 (L1) blockchain architecture. The industry is fast moving away from monolithic blockchain designs and towards modular ones.

Fuel demonstrates that developing new monolithic L1s in 2022 is short-sighted and that building high-performance execution layers on top of modular blockchains can produce extremely high throughput while retaining incredible Ethereum-grade security guarantees. Innovation does not require launching a new L1, but can rather happen at the execution layer.

Fuel features fraud-provable trust-minimized light clients that deliver better security and decentralization guarantees in addition to trust-minimized liquidity bridging, which is not possible between two L1s.

With Fuel, we can now go #BeyondMonolithic.