London, UK, Sept. 09, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The countdown to Asentum Season 1 has started.
On September 17 at 4:00 p.m. UTC, Asentum will open its Incentivized Testnet, turning months of public blockchain development into an open competition for users, developers, validators and the wider DeFi community.
Everyone starts at zero.
From there, how participants climb the leaderboard is largely up to them.
Users can earn XP by exploring Asentum dApps, interacting with the blockchain, completing quests, staking $ASE, running validators, finding bugs, referring new participants and contributing across the ecosystem.
It is designed to make one of Asentum's biggest testing phases accessible well beyond the traditional developer crowd.
If you can use a dApp, you can participate. If you can run a computer, you can go considerably further.
DeFi Mechanics Meet a Live Testnet
Season 1 borrows heavily from the mechanics that have made DeFi participation competitive.
Daily activity streaks can build XP multipliers as high as 3x. Participants who stake $ASE for 30 days can unlock multiplier tiers ranging from 2x to 10x, while running a validator can add a permanent 1.2x multiplier.
Finding something wrong can be just as valuable as using something that works.
Valid bug reports carry awards ranging from 500 to 25,000 XP, depending on severity, while referrals return 5% of the XP earned by referred participants.
The result is intentionally open-ended. A developer deploying contracts, a DeFi user exploring applications and a home validator signing blocks can all find their own route up the same leaderboard.
And importantly, validator XP is based on blocks signed rather than how much free testnet ASE a participant bonds, limiting the advantage of simply accumulating enormous testnet balances.
The Technology Behind the Competition
The incentives may bring users through the door, but Season 1 is ultimately a stress test for something considerably larger.
Asentum is a Layer-1 blockchain built from scratch around post-quantum security, JavaScript smart contracts and consumer-accessible validation.
Its network uses ML-DSA-65, standardized by NIST under FIPS 204, for signatures from genesis. Rather than planning for a future migration away from classical signatures, post-quantum cryptography is part of Asentum's foundation.
Then there is JavaScript.
Instead of requiring developers to enter another blockchain-specific language ecosystem, Asentum gives JavaScript its own blockchain execution environment. Developers can deploy readable contract source on-chain using a language already used across the web, finance, AI, social platforms and countless existing applications.
Asentum is pushing that environment beyond basic token logic.
Native Cron gives contracts scheduled execution. Vault provides controlled access to protected credentials. Workers allow applications to interact with external services and APIs.
Combined, those capabilities create room for applications that can hold assets, operate on schedules, securely authenticate with outside services and bring verifiable results back on-chain.
For DeFi, AI agents and autonomous applications, that considerably expands the design space.
Anyone Can Help Power the Chain
Asentum is applying the same philosophy to validation.
The network is designed around consumer hardware, and participants can run a validator through the Asentum Operator desktop application or use its command-line installer for VPS deployments.
That creates an important dynamic for September 17.
A participant can use an Asentum application, generate the transaction and potentially operate one of the independent validators helping produce the blocks underneath it.
Asentum has also been progressively reducing the project's own influence over testnet consensus as independently operated validators assume a greater role — making Season 1 a test of decentralization as much as performance.
Everyone Starts at Zero
September 17 is where the pieces come together.
The blockchain, validators, DeFi applications, staking, quests, XP system and leaderboard will all be put in front of Asentum's largest participation wave yet.
The objective is straightforward: use it, explore it, push it and find out what breaks before mainnet.
For participants, there is another objective.
Climb the board.
Asentum Incentivized Testnet Season 1 opens September 17 at 4:00 p.m. UTC.
Participants who want the first notifications when access opens can join the launch list now.
The Season 1 dashboard is already open ahead of launch. Reserve your username.
Claim your username and get ready
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