Testnet-2 | Notion

About

The Monad Foundation will be facilitating Testnet-2, a short-lived, experimental environment designed to enhance validator knowledge and readiness. Validators joining this phase will demonstrate their readiness for mainnet while contributing to a stronger and more resilient ecosystem.

A total of 100-150 participants will be selected to run validators for Testnet-2. To indicate interest in participating, please complete the Google form below:

What to expect

Testnet-2 is expected to run for approximately 10 weeks, during which validator participants will be exposed to network stressors and challenges.

Expected outcomes of Testnet-2 include:

Hands-on experience with Monad client for new network participants
Optimizing validator performance in a dedicated environment for staging and performance testing
Improving the geographical distribution of Monad network nodes

Recommendations and Requirements

Hardware Requirements

It is strongly recommended to run your validator on bare metal servers (virtual machine setups have proven unreliable). The hardware requirements for running validator in this testnet can be found below:

| CPU | • 16 cores or more • 4.5GHz base clock speed or faster (single core performance) • CPU Architecture ◦ AMD Zen 4 or newer ◦ Intel Raptor Lake or newer

• A few examples of compliant CPUs include: AMD Ryzen 7950x, AMD Ryzen 9950x, AMD EPYC 4584PX | | --- | --- | | RAM | • At least 32GB | | Disk | • 2TB SSD for TrieDB (Execution) • 2TB SSD for MonadBFT / OS • Both SSDs should be PCIe Gen4x4 NVME or better | | Bandwidth | 1 Gbps |

SSD Performance

SSD performance can vary dramatically by manufacturer. Below are results from internal testing:

	Observations	Performance Under Load
Samsung 980 / 990 Pro - PCIe 4.0	Top-class performance	Top-class performance
Samsung PM9A1 - PCIe 4.0	Satisfactory performance	Stable performance
Micron 7450 - PCIe 4.0	Satisfactory performance	Some unexpected slowdowns
Nextorage SSDs	Not recommended	Known to become unresponsive due to overheating, requiring system reboots

Selection

Validators will be selected based on multiple factors, including but not limited to:

Experience: Preference for prior experience running validators on high-performance networks.
Commitment & Availability: Active participation and responsiveness throughout the network’s lifespan are essential.
Geographic Region: Preference for underrepresented regions (especially South America, Africa, and Oceania) to enhance decentralization.
Infrastructure Setup: Preference for self-hosted setups and underrepresented data centers.

Note: All interested parties must indicate so by submitting the Testnet-2 Interest Form. Prior submissions to previous interest forms will not be considered.