Ethereum 2.0’s “final” and “official” public testnet, Medalla, is now live, according to the Ethereum Foundation.

• Medalla is the final testnet before the launch of the Eth 2.0 network, which is tentatively expected by year’s end.
• The correct number of peers joined the tesnet to consider it workable, according to a tweet from the Ethereum Foundation’s Hudson Jameson.
• As reported by CoinDesk, Medalla was one of many Eth 2.0 testnets over 2019 and 2020. Unlike the other testnets, however, Medalla was public – meaning network validators were not centrally coordinated by developer teams.
• Over 20,000 validators have joined the network with some 650,000 ether (ETH) staked, according to the Beaconcha.in block explorer. (Each testnet uses its own tokens not equivalent to real ETH.)
• Medalla was joined by five clients including Prysmatic Labs’ Prysm, ChainSafe’s Lodestar, PegaSys’ Teku, Status’ Nimbus and Sigma Prime’s Lighthouse.
• Eth 2.0 encapsulates years of research to switch the current Proof-of-Work (PoW) Ethereum network to a Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus algorithm. The expected launch later this year will be phase 0 of a multiyear overhaul.

Read more: Ethereum 2.0 Developers Announce ‘Final’ Testnet Before Network Launch