[ForNesiaFreak]

Sui’s highly anticipated Permanent Testnet has finally arrived!! This instance of the Sui network serves as Sui’s long-running, decentralized, and permissionless Testnet. Unlike past Testnet Waves 1 and 2, this new Testnet will continue running even after Mainnet launch.

With this network we bring a number of significant feature updates to the community.


Core Network

• Dynamic validator set: Validator candidates that meet sufficient stake requirements can join the network at epoch boundaries, and active validators can leave the network at epoch boundaries. This validator access model proves what it means to be permissionless.
  
• Protocol software and Sui framework upgrade support: Unlike Devnet, Testnet will not be wiped on each software update (unless there are extenuating circumstances). The community will be notified appropriately ahead of any planned software updates or data wipes on Testnet.
  
• Full node restore from database snapshot: Instead of waiting for a Full node to sync, node operators can leverage a checkpoint to quickly bring up a Full node. 
  
• Addresses and signature updates: Account addresses, object IDs, and transaction IDs have been upgraded from 20 bytes to 32 bytes to prevent hash collisions. Additionally, Sui’s default hash function is now Blake2b rather than SHA3, as it is far more performant. And in order to support a wide range of transaction sizes, signatures are now applied over hash digests instead of serialized BCS data. This enables Sui compatibility with hardware wallets, whose signer APIs typically allow limited size inputs.
  

readmore here: https://sui.io/resources-sui/announcing-...t-testnet/