Hassan Maishera
Somnia, the blockchain bringing the world’s data on-chain with record-breaking speed and efficiency, has announced the launch of Shannon Testnet, a major step toward mainnet.
In a press release shared with Cryptowisser, the team said the testnet was named after Claude Elwood Shannon, the father of information theory. Shannon Testnet provides developers and users with a real-world testing ground for high-speed, scalable, and cost-efficient blockchain applications.
This latest development follows Somnia’s record-breaking DevNet performance of 1 million+ TPS, sub-second finality, and sub-cent transaction fees. The Shannon Testnet is here to push blockchain scalability even further. During DevNet testing, Somnia processed over 3.6 million transactions across more than 300,000 unique addresses, proving its ability to handle real-world demand.
The Somnia team added that the Shannon Testnet is designed to test congestion resistance and give developers the infrastructure to deploy applications at a scale never before possible.
Shannon is designed to simulate real-world conditions, ensuring that blockchain applications can function at a mass scale.
What’s new on Testnet:
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Greater Decentralization – Multiple third-party validators are now running, with staking protocols live to enhance security and resilience.
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Increased Stability – No more state wipes, allowing developers to build confidently without needing to redeploy or replay state.
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Enhanced Developer Readiness – The necessary infrastructure is fully in place for building and testing applications.
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Ecosystem Growth – More projects will be announced and onboarded to drive real adoption and testnet activity.
Infrastructure Partners
Somnia revealed that the Shannon Testnet is fully equipped with the infrastructure developers need to build and scale their applications. We have integrated key infrastructure partners, ensuring seamless development and deployment.
With the upcoming robust ecosystem in place, developers can immediately start building without needing to wait for additional integrations.
Somnia’s Groundbreaking Technology
Somnia’s Shannon Testnet is powered by several groundbreaking innovations, making it the most advanced blockchain testing environment available today.
MultiStream Consensus: The Backbone of High-Performance Scalability
Somnia’s MultiStream Consensus is a breakthrough in blockchain scaling. It allows parallel transaction execution without network slowdowns, ensuring that even at high transaction volumes, Somnia maintains speed, efficiency, and decentralization.
Additional Innovations Driving Somnia’s Unmatched Performance
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Accelerated Sequential Execution: Converts EVM bytecode into highly optimized native code, delivering unparalleled single-core performance without runtime interpretation bottlenecks.
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IceDB (Deterministic Database): A custom-built blockchain database providing nanosecond-level read/write speeds, ensuring consistent transaction finalization and accurate gas fee estimation.
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Advanced Compression Techniques: Reduces bandwidth requirements through streaming compression algorithms, enabling scalability for millions of transactions per second.
Shannon Testnet offers developers a robust and scalable environment to build next-generation blockchain applications by integrating these technologies.
Ushering in New Use Cases for the Ecosystem
Thanks to its high speed and low-cost transactions, Somnia provides the foundation for entirely new categories of blockchain applications, including:
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Reactive Applications: Smart contracts that can instantly respond to on-chain events and real-world data, unlocking new possibilities for real-time gaming, dynamic marketplaces, and automated financial services.
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Fully On-Chain Gaming: Games with real-time mechanics, instant transactions, and decentralized economies, removing the need for centralized servers.
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Scalable DeFi Protocols: High-frequency trading, instant swaps, and decentralized financial infrastructure without congestion or excessive fees.
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Social Platforms and Metaverses: Interactive digital worlds and social networks that scale seamlessly with millions of users.
While commenting on the testnet, Somnia founder Paul Thomas said,
“Shannon Testnet is the proving ground for a fully on-chain future. With 1M+ TPS, sub-second finality, and MultiStream Consensus, developers can build without limits, and millions of users can experience blockchain at true internet scale.”
Looking Ahead
Launching Somnia’s Shannon Testnet is a critical step toward mainnet readiness. Over the coming months, developers will deploy applications, optimize performance, and stress-test the network while Somnia continues refining its infrastructure for full-scale adoption.
Somnia is the fastest and most cost-effective EVM Layer-1 blockchain, capable of processing over 400,000 transactions per second (tps) with sub-second finality. Somnia’s new multi-stream consensus technology achieves sub-second block certainty and higher transaction throughput.
Sequential execution and compression algorithms effectively handle high-density scenarios, increasing the amount of data transferred between nodes by 10-20x.
The custom database IceDB achieves 70-100 nanosecond read/write times, reducing transaction costs to less than a penny. This makes Somnia an ideal platform for building large-scale, real-time applications in games, social, metaverse, finance, and other fields, serving millions of users, all on-chain, making EVM more efficient than ever before.
