TN12 is the public Covenants++ testnet for Kaspa. It is the primary environment for testing Silverscript contracts, covenant operations, and ZK proof verification before mainnet launch.

TN12 Overview

Property Value
Name Testnet-12 (TN12)
Launched January 5, 2026
Last Reset February 9, 2026
Block Rate 10 BPS
Consensus DagKnight
Purpose Covenants++ feature testing

What Is Live on TN12

The February 9 reset introduced significant new features:

Feature KIP Status
Covenant IDs KIP-20 Active
Blake3 Sequencing Commitment KIP-21 Active (OpChainblockSeqCommit, opcode 0xd4)
ZK Verify Precompiles KIP-16 Active (Groth16 + RISC Zero)
Extended Covenant Opcodes KIP-17 Active (Auth/Cov binding)
Transaction Introspection KIP-10 Active
Silverscript Compiler – Experimental
Native Asset Testing – Active

Covenant ID Opcodes

Opcode Code Description
OpInputCovenantId 0xcf Get covenant ID of an input
OpCovOutputCount 0xd0 Count outputs with same covenant ID
OpCovOutputIndex 0xd1 Get index of covenant output
OpAuthOutputCount 0xd2 Count auth-bound outputs
OpAuthOutputIndex 0xd3 Get index of auth-bound output
OpChainblockSeqCommit 0xd4 Blake3 sequencing commitment

Connecting to TN12

Run a TN12 Node

# Clone rusty-kaspa (Kaspa's Rust node)
git clone https://github.com/kaspanet/rusty-kaspa.git
cd rusty-kaspa

# Checkout the covpp branch
git checkout covpp

# Build
cargo build --release

# Run a TN12 node
cargo run --release --bin kaspad -- --testnet

Connect a vProgs Node to TN12

cd vprogs
cargo run --release --bin vprogs-node -- --testnet --kaspad-address 127.0.0.1:16311

Default TN12 Ports

Service Port
gRPC 16310
P2P 16311
wRPC (Borsh) 17310
wRPC (JSON) 18310

Getting Test KAS

Faucet

[Coming Soon] A web faucet for TN12 is planned. In the meantime, mine testnet coins directly.

Mining on TN12

You can mine test KAS by running a CPU miner against your TN12 node:

# Using the built-in miner (from rusty-kaspa)
cargo run --release --bin kaspad -- --testnet --utxoindex --mining-address kaspatest:qr...

Replace kaspatest:qr... with your testnet address.

Submitting Transactions

Using kaspa-cli

[Coming Soon] CLI transaction tooling is under development.

Using RPC Directly

# Submit a raw transaction via gRPC
grpcurl -plaintext localhost:16310 protowire.RPC/SubmitTransaction \
    -d '{"transaction": {...}}'

Using Silverscript

# Compile and deploy a covenant
silverscript compile vault.ss --output vault.script

# [Coming Soon] Deploy to TN12
silverscript deploy vault.script --network testnet

Block Explorer

[Coming Soon] A TN12 block explorer with covenant and ZK proof visibility is planned. For now, you can query the node directly via RPC.

Useful RPC Queries

# Get current DAA score (block height proxy)
grpcurl -plaintext localhost:16310 protowire.RPC/GetBlockDagInfo

# Get UTXO set for an address
grpcurl -plaintext localhost:16310 protowire.RPC/GetUtxosByAddresses \
    -d '{"addresses": ["kaspatest:qr..."]}'

# Get block by hash
grpcurl -plaintext localhost:16310 protowire.RPC/GetBlock \
    -d '{"hash": "...", "includeTransactions": true}'

ZK Proof Testing

TN12 supports two ZK verification backends:

Groth16

  • Used with Noir inline ZK covenants
  • Tiny proof size
  • Sub-second verification on L1

RISC Zero

  • Used for based ZK applications
  • Larger proof size (STARK-based)
  • Supports general-purpose computation

Testing a ZK Proof

# [Coming Soon] -- Full ZK testing workflow

# 1. Generate a proof locally
# 2. Construct a transaction with the proof in the script sig
# 3. Submit via RPC
# 4. Check verification status

For a working ZK covenant example, see the ZK Covenant Rollup PoC by Maxim Biryukov.

Known Limitations

Limitation Description
Experimental TN12 may be reset at any time; do not rely on persistent state
No faucet Must mine test KAS directly
Silverscript unstable Compiler API and syntax may change
No deployment CLI Contract deployment requires manual transaction construction
No block explorer Must use RPC for chain queries
ZK proofs manual No integrated proving toolchain yet
Single-node testing Multi-node testnet clusters require manual setup

Testnet vs. Mainnet Timeline

Milestone Target
TN12 active (covenant testing) Now
Covenants++ hard fork (mainnet) May 5, 2026
Silverscript mainnet readiness May 2026+
vProgs Phase 1 (standalone) TBD
vProgs Phase 2 (syncompo) TBD

Troubleshooting

Node fails to sync: Ensure you are on the covpp branch of rusty-kaspa. The mainnet branch does not support TN12 features.

Transaction rejected: Check that your transaction uses valid TN12 opcodes. Opcodes from the Covenants++ set (0xcf-0xd4) are only valid on TN12 until the mainnet hard fork.

ZK proof verification fails: Ensure your proof was generated with the correct verification parameters. Groth16 and RISC Zero use different proof formats.