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Shell Testnet is Live — wPoA Consensus, chain_id 10

·Shell Chain Team
releasetestnetwpoaconsensus

Shell Testnet is Live

Shell-Chain v0.20.0 ships today with the first public testnet running Weighted Proof of Authority (wPoA) consensus. After months of development, the testnet is open for developers to explore, test smart contracts, and provide feedback.

Network Details

Parameter Value
Chain ID 10
Engine wPoA (Weighted Proof of Authority)
Block time ~2 s
RPC https://rpc.testnet.shell.network
Explorer https://explorer.testnet.shell.network
Faucet https://faucet.testnet.shell.network

What is wPoA?

Weighted Proof of Authority extends classical PoA with validator weights. Instead of a simple majority, a block is finalized when validators holding ⌈2/3 × total_weight⌉ co-sign it. This allows staggered trust between validators — critical infrastructure providers hold higher weight during early testnet phases.

The wPoA round state machine (propose → vote → commit) includes a view-change protocol: if the proposer times out, validators vote for a new view and a backup proposer takes over within one block time.

Shell-Chain also runs a two-layer peer scoring system:

  • PeerScorer tracks wPoA vote quality (rewards for correct votes, penalties for duplicates or wrong-block-hash votes).
  • When a peer's score drops below the disconnect threshold, it is automatically fed into the network-level PeerBanList (3 violations → 5-minute ban).

Get Testnet SHELL

curl https://faucet.testnet.shell.network/faucet \
  -X POST -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{"address":"0xYourAddress"}'

Rate limit: 1 SHELL per IP per 24 hours.

Add to Your Wallet

Shella Chrome Wallet includes the Shell Testnet preset — just click the network selector and choose Shell Testnet.

MetaMask (manual):

  • Network name: Shell Testnet
  • RPC URL: https://rpc.testnet.shell.network
  • Chain ID: 10
  • Currency: SHELL

Deploy a Smart Contract

# Foundry
forge create --rpc-url https://rpc.testnet.shell.network \
  --private-key $PRIVATE_KEY \
  src/MyContract.sol:MyContract

What's Next

  • T.8 — 24h stability observation: After 24h of clean block production we will promote the testnet to "stable" status.
  • Wallet Phase B — multi-account support + full EVM signing parity
  • v0.21.0 — Recursive STARK L2 research preview + ProverRegistry integration

We welcome bug reports, smart contract tests, and faucet stress-tests. Open an issue at github.com/LucienSong/shell-chain.