The Rewards phase of the ITN is coming to an end. So, you may be asking… as an ada holder who has been delegating on the ITN testnet – via the dedicated Daedalus or Yoroi wallets that were created – what does this mean for me?
Well, the simple answer is that (yay) you’ve been earning ada rewards and (boo) that period is now coming to an end. To make the ITN as close to a ‘real world’ environment as possible, we offered real ada rewards to people delegating test ada on the network. And you’ll get duly credited back with those rewards as we get closer to Shelley on the mainnet this summer.
You don’t need to do anything right now, except accept our heartfelt appreciation. We’d like to thank everyone for their support of the ITN, which has proved to be an amazing proving ground for testing and development. As well as proof that Cardano has one of the most skilled and supportive communities in the blockchain space.
In fact, the ITN has proved to be such a useful thing that we’re looking at extending it a little longer…
For that, however, we need the support of the community.
So while the current rewards period is ending today, we are currently looking at submitting a proposal to the community towards the end of June, to keep the ITN running during July, until the mainnet hard fork happens, currently scheduled for the 29th July.
Our Jormungandr team – which operates in parallel and completely separately to the Shelley mainnet team – has a number of ideas they’d like to prototype and test. At IOHK, we feel this could be an excellent platform to do so. Maybe even an exploratory network to benchmark new features and innovations before integration to Cardano mainnet… but let’s not jump the gun.
At the time of writing, we have already started to explore this idea with our stake pool operator community. Discussions are already underway and we’re planning to put it to an on-chain voting proposal – an innovation in itself really!
But ultimately, this is a decision for our stake pool operator community. This is a decentralized network, so we need the support of the majority in order to keep the ITN alive. We’ll keep you posted. But if we do give it a bit longer, it may mean a few more rewards for you, the ada holder, too.
Nothing is locked down yet, but just stay tuned. As an ada holder, you don’t need to do anything right now. Once we get to Shelley on mainnet, you’ll be able to retrieve the ada rewards you’ve earned into your mainnet wallet whatever happens – none of that will change. We’ve been tracking those rewards throughout the ITN and in time, you’ll be able to transfer your rewards balance to your mainnet Shelley wallet. In fact, you may even get further rewards into July.
We’ll keep you up to speed on what is decided and if we set up a new rewards period for you to get involved in. Thanks as ever for the support and for being part of the ITN journey… so far?
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