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The Battle of Nodes: New Dawn is underway... now what?
We put together a little explainer.
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What to Expect from Battle of Nodes
Battle of Nodes is a staged competition designed to put the MultiversX network through progressively more demanding conditions, culminating in the activation and stress testing of Supernova under real-world conditions. Here is how it unfolds and why each phase exists.
Phase 1: Onboarding and Stabilization
The competition opens with validators joining the network and getting their nodes running. This phase is not passive. It includes structured stress testing under pre-Supernova conditions, pushing the network to establish a performance baseline before the upgrade activates.
The reason this comes first is straightforward: before we activate a major protocol upgrade under live competition conditions, we need to know the network holds. This phase answers that question.
It is also worth noting what kind of network this is. Battle of Nodes does not run on a devnet or testnet. It runs on a shadow fork of mainnet — a fork that copies the actual state of the MultiversX mainnet. The conditions are as close to real as possible without being mainnet itself. That distinction matters for the validity of everything that follows.
Phase 2: Supernova Activation
Once the network has proven stable under load, the upgrade activates, transitioning to Supernova. This means going from 6s to 600ms block times live, with validators already running and competition already underway.
This is the technical centerpiece of Battle of Nodes. Activating Supernova under real load, with real participants, is the only way to know how the upgrade performs in conditions that matter.
Phase 3: Post-Supernova Stress Testing
After activation, validators continue proving network stability at 600ms while Guild Wars challenges are specifically designed to push the network's performance and capacity to its limits.
The distinction between the two tracks is intentional. Validators test stability and capability. Guild Wars tests performance and capacity. They are complementary by design: validators establish that the network holds, guilds then find out how hard it can be pushed.
Phase 4: Closing and Final Submissions
Once all challenges are complete, the competition moves into its final window. Validators submit final reports and comparison data. Guild scores are computed. Everything closes and the leaderboards are finalized and move to their evaluation phase.
The Security Track: Open the Entire Time
Running across all phases, 24 hours a day, is the Security Track. There are no timed windows and no structured challenges. If you think you can find a vulnerability, probe an edge case, or find a way to stress the network outside of the validator and guild frameworks — that is exactly what this track is for. Submit findings through the portal at any point during the competition.
Why This Structure?
Networks do not fail under normal conditions. They fail under spikes, competition, adversarial behavior, automation, and economic pressure. Battle of Nodes is designed to produce all of those conditions in sequence, with a major protocol upgrade in the middle.
The phased structure reflects the real dependency chain: you cannot stress what is not stable, and you cannot validate an upgrade without a proven baseline to compare against.
Help us battle test the biggest upgrade in our history.
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