Ethereum 2.0 ‘Dress Rehearsal’ Gets a Second Shot With Zinken Testnet

Developers will take a second whack at a final Ethereum 2.0 testnet after the first, Spadina, failed due to “critical peering issues.”

By William Foxley

Oct 1, 2020 at 2:49 p.m. UTC

Updated Sep 14, 2021 at 10:03 a.m. UTC

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Ethereum developers will take a second whack at a final Ethereum 2.0 “dress rehearsal” after the first, Spadina, failed due to “critical peering issues,” Ethereum Foundation researcher Danny Ryan said in a tweet Wednesday.

The second testnet, named Zinken, will launch Oct. 12 at 12:00 UTC.
Ryan said he is “primarily looking for a clean client release process and minimal headaches for users” with Zinken.
The dress rehearsal testnets were created to give Ethereum stakers another practice run at moving ether (ETH) into the Eth 2.0 deposit contract, a necessary step before the new blockchain can start working.
Spadina hit a snag due to “configuration parameters” with Prysmatic Labs’ Prysm client, the team said in a post-mortem.
“We lagged behind in terms of taking Spadina seriously, having a detailed checklist, and overall having a release ready before the genesis event,” the team said.
Ryan added the dress rehearsal’s load was tilted unfavorably toward Prysm, which took on the lion's share of the testnet’s users.
The same issue – stakers picking Prysm over the four other available Eth 2.0 clients – also presented itself during August’s Medalla testnet.

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