Band v3 Testnet Phase 1: Bringing the Boring Oracle to Life!
We’re delighted to announce the Band v3 Testnet Phase 1, a significant step toward realizing our vision for an “Open Data Oracle for Everyone.”
We’re delighted to announce the Band v3 Testnet Phase 1, a significant step toward realizing our vision for an “Open Data Oracle for Everyone.”
In our previous announcement, “Band v3: An Open Data Oracle for Everyone”, we outlined the challenges Band v3 addresses and its transformative potential. Since then, we’ve made tremendous progress: advancing technical development, refining key features, collaborating with potential partners, and engaging our community to ensure Band v3 meets real-world needs.
The testnet now brings these efforts to life, providing developers and validators their first opportunity to interact with Band v3’s groundbreaking capabilities.
Band v3 Testnet’s Role in the Development Cycle
The Band v3 Testnet Phase 1 is a proving ground for innovation. It is a production-ready version of Band v3, enabling developers to explore core features like the Signaling Hub, Concurrent Price Streams, and Data Tunnels, while validators test performance and reliability. This phase ensures that Band v3’s infrastructure is robust, scalable, and ready for mainnet deployment.
More than just a mere test—it’s an opportunity to shape the future. This testnet invites the community to refine Band v3 by providing feedback and discovering new use cases. Your participation helps perfect the system, paving the way for a seamless transition to mainnet and unlocking new possibilities for decentralized applications.
Updating Band v3 Capabilities and Mechanics in the First Testnet Phase
Band v3 introduces new modules designed to enhance blockchain interoperability, transparency, and efficiency. Let’s take a closer look at its key features in Testnet Phase 1:
Signaling Hub
The Signaling Hub is a powerful tool for developers and projects to list their tokens on BandChain. Users can access the Signaling Hub via Cosmoscan and participate in voting to determine which token symbols should be included in Band v3’s Concurrent Price Stream. Voting Power, required for this process, can be obtained by staking $BAND directly on BandChain or through $stBAND. At this stage, Band v3 supports up to 300 symbols, chosen based on the highest Voting Power, with a minimum requirement of 1,000 points. This ensures that feed parameters, such as interval and frequency are optimized for the most critical symbols.
Learn more about $stBAND in the blog: Introducing stBAND: BAND’s First Liquid Staking Derivative, a Key Element of Band v3!
Concurrent Price Stream
The Concurrent Price Stream module is central to Band v3’s pricing mechanism. It serves as a repository for asset prices reported by validators. Validators aggregate data based on signals from the Signaling Hub and feed the data according to the specified intervals and frequencies for each symbol. Once consolidated, the data is transformed into an Aggregated Price, which is then prepared for submission.
Data Tunnel
The Data Tunnel module ensures seamless delivery of aggregated prices to destination chains. After aggregation, prices are relayed through the Data Tunnel, with all data routes visible on Cosmoscan. Currently, only the TSS and IBC routes are available for relaying processes. However, future updates will include additional relaying routes via other interoperability layers such as Router Protocol and interchain modules like IBC-Hooks. Enhancements to the Data Tunnel’s user experience are also planned, to make route selection easier for developers.
Learn more about Data Tunnel and Concurrent Price Stream here:
Learn More About Tunnel & Concurrent Prices Stream
Validators Are Key
Validators play a critical role in ensuring Band v3’s success. They are encouraged to adopt several essential tools designed to streamline their contributions and enhance system reliability:
- Gogru: An automated script that identifies requested price feeds, requests data from Bothan, and processes responses for BandChain.
- Bothan: A library for interacting with various cryptocurrency price APIs. Supporting sources include Binance, Bybit, CoinGecko, CoinMarketCap, CryptoCompare, HTX, and Kraken.
- Cylinder: A tool for validators involved in Threshold Signature Scheme (TSS) message signing, ensuring cryptographic security and operational efficiency.
- Falcon: A command-line tool for relaying data from BandChain's Tunnel module to target blockchains, ensuring seamless data transmission.
By adopting these tools, validators enhance Band v3’s security, efficiency, and transparency, contributing to its decentralized oracle ecosystem.
Forward-Looking Call to Action
Validators
Join the Band v3 testnet as a validator and be at the forefront of shaping the next-gen oracle solution. Onboarding has been designed to be seamless, with resources readily available to get you started:
BUIDLERs
Are you ready to build the future of decentralized oracles? Join the Band v3 Testnet to contribute, test, and innovate. Your feedback is invaluable in refining the system and co-creating the BandChain ecosystem. Here’s how you can get involved:
- Participate in the testnet and provide feedback.
- Join Band’s developer community to collaborate and contribute.
Start your journey today with these resources:
Get support and stay updated:
Vision Beyond the Testnet
The testnet is a crucial step toward the mainnet rollout, and the insights gained here will help shape Band v3’s future. Feedback from developers and validators will drive:
- Refinements and Improvements: Continuous updates to ensure scalability, resilience, and ease of use.
- Building Confidence: Demonstrating Band v3’s reliability and scalability in real-world environments.
Participating in the testnet positions developers and validators for early adoption and potential advantages in the mainnet phases. By engaging in this collaborative process, you contribute to Band’s vision of redefining decentralized oracles for the blockchain ecosystem.
About Band
An open data oracle for everyone - Band delivers free information flow and connects the real world to Web 3, serving as the backbone of DeFi, prediction markets, and games for global blockchain users and institutions with zero counterparty risk.
Through an incentivized tokenomic design and robust governance, Band helps secure billions of dollars in value on-chain.
Learn more about Band: Linktree
