Many may not be well informed on what a testnet actually entails. Well if you're one, welcome to my blog!
WHAT IS A TESTNET?
A testnet is a term that signifies the process of testing for a network of blockchains , that creates an environment for the experimentation of features of applications, on different interfaces, without using real money.
A testenet creates an environment in which developers can obtain and send satoshis, that have no real-world value, on a network's blockchain.
CHROMIA'S TESTNET LAUNCH
Chromia's testnet is now publicly available! After a long time of awaiting it's development and updates, Chromia is proud to present it's Vault and Explorer for the first time!
Chromia Vault
The Chromia Vault is it's wallet software, the place where you keep your keys and manage your tokens. It is different to most other wallets out there though, which is why it was opted to be called a Vault instead.
The Vault lets you manage your tokens across different chains, browse dapps available on Chromia, and control your accounts on different dapps (Chromia SSO, stay tuned for more about this).
Beginner's Guide to Vault
The Chromia vault can be accessed via vault-testnet.chromia.com. If you have used any kind of blockchain wallet before, the process of account creation should be intuitive. The most important thing is that you remember to record your mnemonic phrase somewhere safe!
Viewing available accounts and the transfer interface
Your Vault can have many accounts active within it, each account is registered on a specific blockchain. Each dapp consists of at least one blockchain. The Vault can query Chromia system chains to find available dapp chains.
Chromia Block Explorer
A block explorer is a tool that is used to view all Cryptocurrency transactions online. With this tool, it is able to monitor transaction histories and balances of addresses.
Chromia Explorer allows you to visualize transactions and activity on different chains. It stands out from other explorers, because it requires no indexing server (a window service that maintains an index of most of the files on a computer, in other to improve seraching performances), and the code running in your browser can directly query the blockchain. Possibly, the first fully decentralized blockchain.
Chromia's explorer can achieve true decentralization, because it's relational blockchain removes the need for indexing services, you can fetch information straight from the chain without any servers in between. Read on for more information about the Vault and the Explorer, and how you can try them out yourself.
Beginner's Guide to Explorer
Chromia Explorer can be accessed at explorer-testnet.chromia.com.
Exploring the Vault blockchain
You can use the explorer to track your transactions, or to diagnose issues. As a developer, you can easily write your own frontend for these queries (stay tuned for more information on this).
Viewing the transaction list and the details of a specific transaction
Both the Vault, and the Explorer interface with Chromia's Flexible Tokens library (FT3), a Rell module which runs on all Chromia blockchains. Code for FT3 can be found here. FT3 is the logic that makes the vault work. When you transfer money it sends an operation to the blockchain.
FT3 is made out of 2 components:
1.) JavaaScript Library: This makes the job easy for developers. Developers can easily create accounts, users, auth_descriptors, and transfers using the library.
2.) Rell Library: Once the block is mined, the transactions are executed (and therefore the operations in there contained). A Rell library can expose its own operations, or act as a library for Rell developers, that can write their own operations. In short the devs don't have to worry about how the transfer and account management logic works. They simply call the function.
Signature details
The Chromia Explorer can work on any blockchain, and it is independent from the Vault and FT3... almost! There are some parameters that need to be set to initialize FT3 module such as name, description and website of the dapp.
I hope you enjoy using the Chromia Vault and the Explorer
For more information on Chromia, kindly visit;
Official website: https://chromia.com
White paper: https://chromia.com/chromia-platform-white-paper-2019.pdf
Programming dApps: http://rell.chromia.com/en/master/https://try.chromia.dev/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/chromia
Telegram: https://t.me/hellochromia
Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/teamchromia
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/teamchromia
