Elrond Invites Hackers To Participate In Incetivized Stress Test

In preparation for its mainnet launch, blockchain firm Elrond has invited hackers around the world to participate in its incentivized stress test, the company said in a press release on 2 June.

According to the announcement, Elrond’s network stress test, called “Battle of Nodes: Onchained”, has the goal of demonstrating the robustness of the ERD ecosystem. The event, scheduled to start on 4 June 12:00 UTC, will reward node operators for running validators, doing missions, finding bugs and exploiting vulnerabilities.

Beniamin Mincu, Elrond’s CEO, said:

“Battle of Nodes: Onchained is the final and most important step before the Elrond mainnet. Through it, we will demonstrate a robust and performant network leading to the launch. This is a remarkable milestone, and once 15 days have passed where the network runs without interruptions in a high TPS environment, we will know Elrond is ready to go live.”

In order for its test network to be “transformed into a virtual battleground”, participants in the event will be incentivized with a $40,000 prize pool. After the event has concluded, $20,000 worth of the network’s native ERD tokens will be awarded to participants, with an additional $20,000 to be assigned to mainnet node operators in staking rewards over the next year.

The event will also feature several network restarts, hard forks, as well as two events designed to showcase the network’s performance. In order to maximise their rewards, participants will be encouraged to keep their nodes online for the duration of the testing period, complete missions, and identify bugs.

This is not the first stress test that Elrond has organised. Last year’s “Battle of Nodes” saw more than 400 participants from 43 countries, which operated over 800 community nodes. At the time, the firm also distributed $75,000 in rewards and bug bounties.