As you may be aware, Shardeum launched its mainnet on May 5, 2025 with token transfer and public validator functionalities. As outlined in our roadmap, Shardeum is aiming to deploy smart contract functionality on mainnet later this year. To prepare for the same, Shardeum launched a dedicated testnet on July 24, 2025 for smart contracts – a developer-focused environment for deploying, testing, and refining dApps before they go live on the mainnet. It supports EVM-compatible tooling and welcomes early community contributions.
PS. We chose the name “Unstablenet” to transparently reflect that the network features components that our engineering team is actively stress-testing. You can expect frequent changes and downtimes, with data resets when needed, while allowing our team to gather valuable insights to prepare for the smart contract deployment on mainnet.
Since our mainnet launch, Shardeum has delivered linear scalability, seamless token and stake transfers, and transaction fees under $0.01. Developers now have a unique opportunity to build on the world’s first autoscaling Layer 1 blockchain – one that removes the burden of network congestion and unpredictable gas fees, allowing you to focus entirely on creating great user experiences. And with an active community of over 1 million users, Shardeum offers a head start in user acquisition – on a low-fee, EVM-compatible chain like no other in the industry.
We, at Shardeum, are looking forward to enable all kinds of applications – from machine learning models to your favorite gaming platforms – that were previously not feasible on blockchains. Together, let’s redefine what’s possible in Web3.
Yes, Unstablenet is open to developers, builders, and community members who want to experiment with smart contracts and dApps on Shardeum. You’ll just need a wallet such as MetaMask configured with the RPC details given below to start interacting with the network immediately:
Here is our dev documentation page: https://docs.shardeum.org/docs/developer
Further, our engineering team has created a starter suite of dApps for the community, known as the ‘Shardeum DApp Playground‘. We invite you to use it to deploy smart contracts, test features, and build dApps on Unstablenet.
More content is on the way! We’re working on adding boilerplates and other helpful resources to our documentation.
Unstablenet does not have a fixed end date and is expected to run long-term. It will continue to serve as a space for early previews of upcoming features and ongoing testing.
There are no reward programs yet, however we plan to introduce incentives to recognize and support community contributions to Unstablenet soon. Details will be announced in advance so everyone has a fair opportunity to get involved.
Yes, support for community-run nodes is on the roadmap. While it won’t be available initially at launch, we intend to transition Unstablenet into a community-operated testnet.
You can contribute by:
When adding Unstablenet endpoints to MetaMask, you may see the suggested network name as “Shardeum Liberty 1.x”. This is due to the chain ID (8080) being previously used for an older testnet. You may rename it locally as “Shardeum Unstablenet” in your wallet settings if desired.
This is a known limitation in our current gas estimation mechanism, which defaults to a fixed value of 3 million. If you encounter issues with transactions not going through, try setting a higher custom gas limit manually. Only the actual gas used during execution will be deducted from your test balance.
Fixes and feature updates will be rolled out progressively by the tech team as they are ready.
