We are proud to announce the beginning of Gemini III, a series of permissionless public test networks. This will begin as a non-incentivized network to test our protocol on a live network. Unlike previous phases, the features of Gemini III will continue to evolve over time through several iterations of test networks until we are ready to transition to the final incentivized test network.
The Gemini III Non-Incentivized Stress Test starts on Wednesday, March 15, 2023 at 4 pm UTC.
There have been a lot of exciting upgrades and improvements to the Subspace Network protocol since Gemini II, and we are very excited for everyone to get started on testing. First, we’ve upgraded our Consensus to v2.2 (which will soon be upgraded to v2.3, code-named dilithium, in the coming weeks). While the fundamental concepts remain the same from Consensus v1 described in our original technical whitepaper, Consensus v2 enhances the security guarantees of the network and improves user experience. If you want to learn more about Consensus v2, check out the following resources:
Hitchhiker’s Guide to Subspace
Dilithium: New Consensus Materials
Second, we upgraded our Distributed Storage Network (DSN) to v2, which enables farmers to download data (sync) from other farmers (not nodes). Our engineers are already working on the next iteration, where nodes will be able to sync from the farmer network. That means we will no longer need archival nodes that store gigabytes, terabytes or even petabytes of the infinitely growing blockchain history. These are huge milestones that bring us closer to finally resolving the farmer’s dilemma.
There will be a set of key features that we’ll focus on testing for each iteration as we continue to upgrade things throughout Gemini III. At the initial launch on Wednesday, March 15, our goal will be to test the network quality and stability as a large number of farmers join the network together.
We are expecting things to break - but that’s the fun part! It’s a good sign of progress. So we need everyone in our community to help stress-test our network by running a farmer and keeping them online as long as possible throughout the various iterations of Gemini III. This will help us understand what we need to improve, accelerating our progress toward our next milestones.
*Please note that sync times may be slow, possibly requiring several days to fully sync, but bear with us as the main goals at this stage are to launch the live network for testing and identify as many critical bugs as possible. As always, we’d like to thank everyone in our community for the continued support.
**Known issues as of March 13, 2023: it has come to our attention that some of our farmers are experiencing internet problems due to heavy network bandwidth usage. This is a known issue that we’re actively working on resolving. Please share your hardware setup, including your router details, if you’re facing the same issue in this forum post: Node knocks out internet in whole house - #11 by jim-counter
Recommended Farming Methods
The Subspace Network Farming CLI simplifies the farming experience by combining the node and the farmer in the same application. This not only improves user experience for farmers, but also improves system performance with lower RAM, networking, and CPU usage.
Subspace Docs: https://docs.subspace.network/
Minimum Hardware Requirements
CPU: 4 Core+
RAM: 4 GB+ (Rec. 8 GB)
SWAP: 4 GB
Storage: 50 GB SSD
Subspace Network Block Explorer Launches on March 15
You asked. We listened! Based on the feedback we received from our community, our team is thrilled to announce the release of our in-house open-source block explorer!
This early version is designed to address the imminent needs of the farmers, helping them ensure they’re producing blocks on the correct chain and generating rewards. Farmers will now be able to measure their farming performance and rewards. The next goal in the roadmap is to upgrade this block explorer to support executors to measure node performance and rewards.
Block Explorer launching on March 15
Technical Support Channels
Unlike previous stages, our forum is no longer the default venue for reporting bugs. If you encounter any technical difficulties and need support, please follow the steps below.
Step 1: Visit the Subspace Network forum (Support - Subspace Forum) and search for the issue you’re facing to see if a solution has been presented.
Step 2: Discord is a great place to get quick responses from our ambassadors and other community members. We encourage everyone to leverage our Discord server for peer-to-peer support.
Step 3: If your question needs more attention and you notice other people asking the same question in Discord, and there is no solution in the knowledge base, please escalate the issue by posting in the Subspace Network Forum.
Gemini III Stress Test Launch Party
We’re hosting a Gemini III Stress Test Launch Party this Wednesday! 
The launch party will take place in our Discord server in an effort to bootstrap the network together. Our launch parties are great for everyone to connect with the core contributors and learn how to farm on the Subspace Network for newcomers - live!
Date: Wednesday, March 15, 2023
Time: 4 pm UTC
Place: Subspace Network Discord
Gemini 3c - What to expect
we wrote up a guide for users to know what to expect while running Gemini 3, we will attempt to keep this document updated for users as we make progress on the network.
