Interview with Michael Heinrich, Founder and CEO of 0G Labs on Testnet V3, Galileo

0G Labs, the Layer 1 blockchain for AI, has launched V3 of its testnet. The new Galileo testnet introduces a host of improvements over its predecessor, including a 70% boost in network speed.

The V3 testnet moves 0G closer to its mainnet launch, which will form a decentralized AI operating system for an array of data-intensive applications. Galileo gives dapp developers a clear idea of the sort of scalability and performance they can look forward to, including throughput of up to 2,500 TPS.

We spoke with Funder and CEO of 0G Labs, Michael Heinrich, to better understand Galileo.

Galileo notably boasts a 70% performance boost, achieving up to 2,500 TPS with an optimized CometBFT consensus. Can you elaborate on the specific technical enhancements made to achieve this throughput increase compared to V2?

We learned a lot during the course of running Newton, our V2 testnet. The unprecedented demand from users to access Newton took us by surprise, but proved to be a blessing in disguise since it allowed us to identify chokepoints and develop solutions to overcome these. These findings have been incorporated into Galileo, which is better engineered to prevent mempool congestion and has greater bandwidth to avoid maxing out resources during peak times.

With Galileo, we’ve rebuilt our testnet from the ground up, incorporating the latest EVM standards and enhancing the consensus efficiency with BLS signature to deliver a sleeker, more modular, and altogether more scalable network that can handle anything that’s flung at it. So far, all the benchmarks point to Galileo being streets ahead of its predecessor: from inference workloads to modular memory systems, it’s effortlessly handling it all, aided by more RPCs and compute to cope with high demand.

The V2 testnet saw impressive traction with 2.5 million unique wallets and 350 million transactions. How is the 0G team planning to leverage Galileo’s strengths to further engage the developer and user community, and what feedback from the V2 testnet shaped Galileo’s development?

We actually saw more than 5M wallets, we’re fortunate to have so many users already onboarded and engaging with 0G in various ways, be it as developers, infra partners, or end users. Because their attention is already invested in the 0G ecosystem, having the majority of them accompany us to Galileo has been smooth.

From the perspective of regular users, we’re confident that the improved faucet system will ensure fair test token distribution, allowing everyone to participate on an equal basis. On V3, they’re going to encounter a much faster chain that’s capable of handling anything that’s thrown at it. Coupled with the capabilities that devs have at their disposal, now Galileo is running the Ethereum Engine API and is fully Pectra compatible, and we’re confident that we’ll be able to lure more EVM developers into the fold.

In an early test 0G has already hit 2GB per second in data throughput (and multiples more coming), and compute and the service marketplace are also running better than ever in terms of benchmarks, it’s an exciting time to be building on 0G and we can’t wait to see which direction different developer teams move in now they have all these powerful tools at their disposal.

How many subsequent testnets are planned before mainnet launch, and will Galileo’s state be retained so that applications built on it can be easily migrated to subsequent testnets and eventually mainnet?

Given we re-architected Galileo completely, this will be the final testnet before 0G’s mainnet release, so developers and users alike can be confident that the V3 experience will be very close to what they’ll encounter on mainnet. We will add more features like infinite scalability and increasing the speed per shard to 10,000 tps. 

From a user perspective, what are some reasons to play around with the Galileo testnet and what are some of the tasks and experiences available on V3 for non-technical users to discover?

Everyone loves new, and there’s a lot that’s new on Galileo and that will be of interest to ordinary users almost as much as to developers. It’s a chance to get a feel for what the next generation of smart contract chains is capable of in terms of performance, familiarize themselves with a network they’ll soon be using in a live environment, and there may also be additional incentives for claiming some testnet tokens and experimenting with sending transactions and interacting with dapps. Whether you’re passionate about DeFi, AI, DePIN, DeSci or some other onchain vertical, there are a lot of things taking shape on Galileo that will be relevant to your interests. An easy way to start from a user perspective is to visit the 0G hub at https://hub.0g.ai/. 

About Michael Heinrich:

Michael Heinrich is a Stanford graduate who previously worked at Garten as a Founder and CEO. A Top 100 Entrepreneur of 2022, Michael has had his work published in journals ranging from Harvard Business Review to Hacking Consciousness. While at Stanford he was nominated to work with the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) to transform Taiwanese entrepreneurial education. His previous company Garten was accepted into YCombinator in 2016 and raised multiple rounds, eventually achieving unicorn status. With 0G Labs, Michael is leading the development of the first modular AI chain to support off-chain data verification.

Disclaimer: This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice