Facebook's Diem Testnet Hits 50 Million Transactions

The testnet for Diem, the Facebook-backed stablecoin project, reached over 50 million transactions yesterday, data from blockchain explorer inDiem shows. The development comes a little over a month after Diem was rebranded from the erstwhile “Libra” project.

Diem is a stablecoin—a type of cryptocurrency pegged on a 1:1 basis with fiat currencies, the US dollar in this case—aiming to disrupt the traditional payments market with its low-fee, scalable, and fast settlement features. It is run by the Diem Association and a consortium of other members, such as crypto exchange Coinbase and ride-sharing giant Uber.

Currently running in the testing phase—or the “testnet” in crypto industry lingo—Diem reached over 50 million transactions in the late hours yesterday. Such testing allows developers to mitigate faults within the network, if any, before a public release.

Data shows the Diem testnet operates at an average throughput of over 3 transactions per second (tps). While sounding fast, this is much slower than transactions on both Bitcoin (4.6 tps) and Ethereum (15 tps), and much slower to the speeds on upcoming networks like Solana (65,000 tps). However, Diem may not be operating anywhere near capacity.

In terms of testnet users, over 221,000 individual addresses have interacted with Diem in some capacity. Of those, a single address holds over 100 million LBR (the tokens that run on Diem), while over 53 of those hold exactly 820 LBR.

In all, 57 of the top 100 wallets hold upwards of 29 LBR, while the others hold a single LBR each—likely for testing the network in various ways at various times of the day.

With testing in full flow, a public launch (albeit a so-termed “limited launch) for Diem is expected later in 2021, as per earlier reports. Meanwhile, the stablecoin has already found its takers, with music app Spotify said to already be beefing up its payments division in anticipation.