Table of Contents

• What is Shandong Testnet?
  • Why it is named as Shandong?
  • Why Shandong Testnet is important for Shanghai Upgrade?
• Shandong Testnet: Timeline
  • 19th Sept: Idea of Testnet
  • 27th Sept: Team Announcement
  • 13th Oct, 2022: Shandong Launched
• Shandong Testnet Bugs
  • eth_estimateGas RPC method off
  • EIP-3540 not working properly
  • Faucet Drained by Bot
• How to Join the Shandong Testnet?
  • How to Connect to Shandong with Metamask? {One-Click}
  • How to Connect to Shandong with Metamask? {Manual}
  • How to Get Funds from the Faucet?

What is Shandong Testnet?

Shandong Testnet is a Pre-Shanghai Testnet. This experimental testnet will run in cooperation between EF JavaScript Team and EF DevOps Team. A set of selected Shanghai-considered EIPs is selected for early client testing on this Testnet. Gajinder Singh from EF JavaScript Team and Paritosh Jayanthi from EF Devops Team are the core developers behind Shandong Testnet.

Why it is named as Shandong?

This Testnet is called Shandong, i.e., neighborhood region of Shanghai. Shandong, an eastern Chinese province on the Yellow Sea, is known for its Taoist and Confucian heritage. Shandong, an eastern Chinese province on the Yellow Sea, is known for its Taoist and Confucian heritage. It was also home to the ancient state of Qi, the last kingdom conquered by Qin Shi Huang, who proclaimed himself China's first emperor in 219 B.C. in a ceremony on Taishan Mountain.

Why Shandong Testnet is important for Shanghai Upgrade?

Shandong Testnet is also the first post-Merge only testnet. The testnet activates the first five EIPs from the expected Shanghai EIPs, i.e.,

• EIP-3540: EVM Object Format (EOF) v1
• EIP-3651: Warm COINBASE
• EIP-3670: EOF - Code Validation
• EIP-3855: PUSH0 instruction
• EIP-3860: Limit and meter initcode

Shandong is a Pure JS-based testnet, i.e., running on a set of Lodestar (CL) and EthereumJS (EL) client boot nodes. This testnet will help dApp and front-end developers dig into the code base that is running the network and driving the various protocol changes.

Shandong Testnet: Timeline

19th Sept: Idea of Testnet

There was a discussion between Holger Drewes, Team lead EF JavaScript team and Marius VanDerWijden, Developer Geth regarding the Shanghai Upgrade EIPs.

👀https://t.co/cJsrOQKCRc pic.twitter.com/XfRYLmjs4X

— MariusVanDerWijden (@vdWijden) September 19, 2022

So Developers, thought of creating an early EthereumJS-based Pre-Shanghai Ephemeral Testnet with selected EIPs activated. According to Holger Drewes, the idea was to create a testnet in the next 2-3 weeks with a dedicated chain ID, 2-3 boot nodes running, a public RPC endpoint, and the Shanghai EIPs activated. Readers can follow all these discussions on ethereumjs-monorepo/issues/2298 and ethereumjs-monorepo/pull/2316.

27th Sept: Team Announcement

In the official discord announcement, Holger Drewes created a discord channel for Shandong Testnet. He also announced that the EF JavaScript Team would set up this testnet in cooperation with the EF DevOps team.

In the discord channel, Readers can follow the discussions between Paritosh Jayanthi, Gajinder Singh, and Holger Drewes.

13th Oct: Shandong Launched

We are happy to announce the launch of an early Pre-Shanghai testnet we are calling "Shandong". 🔥https://t.co/1HpFTPUMOU

This is an experimental testnet run in cooperation with EF DevOps which activates a set of selected Shanghai-considered EIPs for early client testing.

🧵: https://t.co/VJ4kWxupG3

— EF JavaScript Team (@EFJavaScript) October 14, 2022

Shandong Testnet Bugs

eth_estimateGas RPC method off

14th October 2022: Team told everyone that eth_estimateGas RPC estimates are off. So, when users submit transactions through MetaMask, they should choose a higher gas price.

EIP-3540 not working properly

17th October 2022: EIP-3540: EVM Object Format (EOF) v1 is not properly working. So, a fix is currently in the works. This issue was discovered by pk910.eth.

Faucet Drained by Bot

19th October 2022: According to EF JS Team, Shandong Testnet Faucet was drained by a bot. So, Team has created a new PoW-based faucet with the help of pk910.eth.

Readers can keep a track of all these issues on ethereumjs-monorepo/issues/2362 created by acolytec3.

How to Join the Shandong Testnet?

How to Connect to Shandong with Metamask? {One-Click}

• Step 1: Go to the shandong.ethdevops.io and Click on Add network to Metamask.

• Step 2: A notification will pop up, and then Click on Approve.

• Step 3: Click on Switch Network. Now Go to Metamask, and Click on Networks to check if Shandong has been added or not.

How to Connect to Shandong with Metamask? {Manual}

• Step 1: Go to Metamask. Click on Networks and then Click on Add Network.

• Step 2: A notification will pop up, and We have put the following parameters.

1. Name: shandong-testnet
2. RPC-URL: https://rpc.shandong.ethdevops.io
3. Chain-ID: 1337902
4. Currency Symbol: ETH
5. Block Explorer URL: https://explorer.shandong.ethdevops.io

• Step 3: Click on Save, and A notification will pop up.
  Click on Switch Network. Now Go to Metamask, and Click on Networks to check if Shandong has been added or not.

How to Get Funds from the Faucet?

• Step 1: Go to https://shandong-faucet.pk910.de/. Verify Captcha at the bottom of the page, Enter the address to receive funds, and Click on Start Mining. We will see a screen loading for 5-10 seconds. Now verify Captcha once again and click on Claim Rewards.

Disclaimer: To prevent malicious actors from exhausting all available funds or accumulating enough Ether to mount long-running spam attacks, this faucet requires some mining work to be done in exchange for free testnet funds.

• Step 2: Our Transaction is successful, and funds are transferred. We can see our funds in the Metamask. We can see our transaction in the Transaction Explorer. Here is the link to our transaction.

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