3.17: Testnet Closing. Mainnet Loading.

If you've been paying attention, you probably saw that we were building toward 3.17. You made a reasonable guess: something specific was coming.

It was. But when we stepped back and looked at where the network actually stood after our most recent Node Runners campaign, the answer was clear — the most valuable thing we could do was bring our testnet campaigns to a close and start shipping mainnet.

What we built together

It's easy to lose track of how far this network has actually come, so let's review.

We started our series of testnests with a simple question: could we build a distributed world supercomputer from scratch, with real people contributing real compute?

Within 60 minutes of launching Testnet I in December 2024, 10,000 nodes had joined from around the planet. Five days later: more than 1.5 million nodes had contributed compute power, with 100,000 running simultaneously at peak, 6 quadrillion FLOPS, and 2.5 trillion cycles proved.

Testnet II: 2.1 million people, 4.5 days, 112 quadrillion FLOPS — nearly 20x the compute of Testnet I. More than 325,000 smart contracts deployed. We introduced NEX Points, a global leaderboard, and wallet connectivity.

Then Testnet III. 2.6 million participants from 190 countries. A peak of 823,200 nodes running simultaneously. 58 million transactions processed, average block time 0.0556 seconds. More than one million community members earned points. Underpinning all of it: zkVM 3.0, a 1,000x improvement in throughput.

During that time, the network's growth wasn't just measured in terms of contributed compute power or onchain activity. Over the testnet period, the Nexus ecosystem grew to 96 mission-aligned partners. By the time Testnet III closed, the ecosystem covered 37 ZK partners, 38 AI partners, 25 compute partners, and 24 DeFi protocols.

The Nexus network went from proof of concept to global-scale verifiable compute layer.

The people in this community made that happen.

Testnet era complete

The network has proven what it needs to prove.

The entire Nexus organization, engineering, product, operations, is now pointed at a single goal: mainnet.

You're entering a new phase of Nexus with us. The testnet campaign era required a specific kind of person: early, curious, willing to bet on something unfinished. That's you — and you got us here.

The mainnet era opens that up: to builders deploying on a live network, DeFi applications and trading desks, financial institutions that need cryptographic guarantees instead of assumed trust, and the new wave of agentic systems that require compute they can prove. We're counting on you to help bring them in.

Your contributions so far haven't just stress-tested the network. They also helped shape it. Nexus OS matured through every testnet phase, and during that same period we announced the Nexus Exchange and USDX, our native stablecoin.

Together, the L1, the Exchange, and USDX form the engine for verifiable finance: settlement, trading, and programmable money in a single composable system.

To everyone who registered before we even announced what 3.17 was: thank you.

The testnet era is proven. Every phase further solidified the conviction in our vision. We're ready. Onward to mainnet.

Connect with us on X and Discord.