This July, Stride is looking to join the ATOM Economic Zone
Stride’s launch proposal is currently in the voting period, closing on June 27th. If this vote passes, the Hub can expect to welcome Stride as a consumer chain on July 19.
While Stride is the second consumer chain to potentially onboard to the Hub, it is the first chain that will be transitioning from sovereign to consumer. This transition is technically complex and has been in development for many months, including one successful launch rehearsal on the Cosmos Hub Replicated Security testnet.
Stride’s next launch rehearsal is scheduled for Jun 28, 2023 at 15:00 UTC as part of Testnet Wednesdays. Every Wednesday in this time slot, Hypha coordinates the testnet validators through consumer chain launches, upgrades, and other testnet events.
This rehearsal is especially important for Hub validators so that you can practice the steps of the transition before doing it on mainnet.
What will happen in this rehearsal?
The rehearsal will occur synchronously on Wednesday June 28, 2023 at 15:00 UTC. Validators, coordinators, and the Stride team will communicate in the #replicated-security-testnet channel of the Cosmos Network Discord. If you don’t have access to this channel, tag a moderator to get the ‘Replicated Security’ role!
Announcements and important reminders will be posted in the #testnet-announcements channel.
- Testnet Hub validators will join the sovereign Stride testnet to catch up with the sovereign chain’s history. Validators who are active on both Hub and Stride mainnet should join as a validator; everyone else joins as a full node.
- The sovereign Stride testnet will pass a software upgrade proposal that will transition the blockchain to being an interchain-secured consumer chain.
- The provider (Hub) testnet will pass a consumer addition proposal approving Stride as a consumer chain.
- After spawn time on the Hub, the ccv state becomes available and can be added to Stride’s binary, which will be used to start up the consumer Stride.
- At the upgrade height, sovereign Stride will halt.
- Hub validators will restart their full nodes using the updated binary.
- Blocks will start on consumer Stride.
- After three blocks, consumer Stride will be fully validated by the Hub’s set.
- The Stride-Hub relayer will start up to transmit the first validator set change (VSC) packets.
- Stride’s IBC connections will be preserved and the chain will contain all of its sovereign history.
What do you need to do?
If you’re a Hub validator who is not part of the Hub testnet, join the testnet! You will need provider chain tokens - available from our faucet here and instructions for joining as a validator are here. The coordinators and fellow validators can provide guidance in the Cosmos Network Discord (tag a moderator to get the ‘Replicated Security’ role).
If you’re already part of the Hub testnet program, join the Stride testnet using the instructions below! The rehearsal will take place next week, but you will need to be on the Stride testnet ahead of the rehearsal itself. Might as well get it done this week 
If you’re both a Hub and Stride mainnet validator, make sure you’re part of this rehearsal! Your experience with both of these chains will be a huge bonus to the rehearsal process. We’d love to get you set up as a validator on both the Hub and Stride testnets to exactly mimic what we’ll be going through on mainnet. Get in touch with us in the #replicated-security-testnet channel of the Cosmos Network Discord !
How do you join the Stride testnet?
Instructions for joining the sovereign Stride testnet are in this repo.
Remember:
- If you are not a validator on both Stride and Hub mainnet, you only need to join as a full node.
- If you are a validator on both Stride and Hub mainnet, you will need to join as a validator! You will need to fill out this Google form to receive Stride testnet delegations before our synchronous rehearsal on the 28th
Keep track of what’s happening on this testnet by following along on the block explorer.