The public testnet

Live since 2026-09-24 at keelchain.com, deployed only by GitHub Actions (infra/testnet/README.md).

The node and the indexer send open CORS headers, so browser clients can call the testnet directly.

Funding an account

See docs/deposits.md: request a deposit address (wallet Receive, CLI or SDK), send signet BTC or Nile USDT/TRX to it, and the chain credits the vault asset after that chain's confirmations.

Clients

A client is any service that signs actions for its users or holds a role. Run the Onboard client workflow with the client's account address: it adds the account to the attester set (and, if asked, makes it the param admin) and sends it starting KEEL and KUSD. The first client is a marketplace sandbox that signs up users with Keel Wallet and settles trades on the chain.

Running a follower

Anyone can run a node that verifies the chain and serves the RPC without voting. Fetch the genesis file (/v1/sync/meta names the snapshot height; the genesis is published with each reset), then:

keel-node --me <seed-or-key>@<port> --genesis genesis.json --role follower \
  --bootstrappers <validator-pubkey>@<ip:port> --advertise <your-ip:port> \
  --sync-from https://testnet.keelchain.com/rpc \
  --storage-dir /var/lib/keel --rpc-listen 127.0.0.1

--sync-from installs the newest snapshot (checked against the full-state hash and the tip hash the peer reports; add --sync-verify <another rpc> to have a second node confirm the tip) and the epoch boundaries, then the node fetches the blocks above it from its peers. A follower holds no block below its snapshot, and --retain-blocks N lets it drop journal segments older than N blocks below each new snapshot; /v1/status reports oldest_block and /v1/blocks serves what it has. Validators keep the full history. Validators keep followers connected through --extra-peers or, once the follower bonds, through the chain state itself.

Faucet

faucet.keelchain.com sends 100 KEEL and 100 KUSD to any account address, once per address a day and a few times per network address. It is an ordinary account funded from genesis; its sends are plain transfers on the explorer. Scripted: POST https://testnet.keelchain.com/api/v1/faucet with {"address": "<64 hex>"}; GET /v1/faucet for the amounts and what it holds, GET /v1/faucet/claims for history. Clients' operator accounts are funded through onboarding, not the faucet.

Operations

Every host backs itself up daily (snapshot, config, and the indexer database on host 0; encrypted, copied off the box), writes health metrics for node_exporter every minute, and votes on pre-approved governance proposals every ten minutes. Host 0 can run Prometheus, Alertmanager and Grafana. Binary upgrades go through a SoftwareUpgrade proposal: a node stops at an activation height it was not voted in for, so the matching release is deployed first. infra/testnet/README.md has the details; CHANGELOG.md announces resets and upgrades.

Resetting

Run Deploy testnet with reset_chain checked. State, the indexer database and the vault registrations are rebuilt from the seeds in the GitHub environment. Balances and roles granted by onboarding are gone; run the onboarding again for each client.

Local

infra/dev/devnet.sh starts a four-validator devnet on one machine; infra/dev/e2e.sh runs the trading and governance flows against it; infra/dev/custody-e2e.sh exercises deposits and payouts with regtest Bitcoin and a Tron mock. See chain/README.md for the flags.