If you’re a longtime follower of the Tezos project, you’re probably aware that the blockchain has been running a test network, called Alphanet, since early 2017. The Alphanet is a live working demo of the Tezos blockchain complete with smart contracts and proof-of-stake block creation. The code has proved resilient over time and laid the foundation for the upcoming launch.

While the Alphanet is meant for public testing, the Tezos development team also operates another test network, called Zeronet, which is intended for internal use and usually contains the latest bleeding edge changes to the codebase. For the past 60 days or so, Alphanet was taken offline while new changes were pushed and tested on Zeronet which performed a chain reset shortly after Alphanet was taken down around March 22.

All of this matters right now because it is one more step toward the Tezos Betanet launch which will allow for ICO token activation, live trading and full transactions on the network prior to the Mainnet launch.

Betanet Launch Plan

According to sources on the Tezos development team, who update developers regularly in a dedicated chat room, the Betanet launch plan will roughly follow this process:

The Zeronet code was to be tested and run until some point in the month of May. After testing to a satisfactory level, the Zeronet code branch would be promoted to the Alphanet branch and Alphanet would be reset (which is happening right now) and then further tested, allowing for bug fixes, for two to three weeks. At that point, with the code battle-hardened, a Betanet branch would be built from the Alphanet code and eventually launched as a live public network.

Evidence of code changes over the past 24-48 hours indicate that this plan is still on track for Betanet launch by the end of June as announced by the Tezos Foundation in early April.

Explore Alphanet

You can view the status of both chains as this switch takes place. The Alphanet link has been updated by the team at OCamlPro to reflect the new Alphanet reset:

According to the TZScan development team, the new Alphanet reset is live at tzscan.io and the Zeronet will once again be live at zeronet.tzscan.io as soon as the Zeronet codebase is updated shortly. There may be some crossover time in between where the site is not properly displaying both networks yet.

More details to follow as they become available.