Kovan Testnet
The Fast and Reliable Ethereum Test Chain

Kovan is a Proof of Authority (PoA) publicly accessible blockchain for Ethereum; created and maintained by a consortium of Ethereum developers, to aide the Ethereum developer community.

Read the Proposal

Advantages
Why are Ethereum developers using Kovan?

Speed
Consistent 4-second blocktimes for a superior developer experience

Resilience
Proof of Authority prevents attacks from hindering development

Realiability
Consortium membership enforced by smart contract logic

Free
Get Kovan ether using multiple faucet services

Infrastructure
Block explorer powered by Etherscan and RPC nodes from Infura

Innovation
Get early access to experimental protocol upgrades

Quick Links

Explorer
Analyse Transactions

Etherscan Explorer

The good people at Etherscan have kindly extended their excellenet block explorer service for use with Kovan.

Netstats
Monitor Network Status

Open Netstats

View comprehensive realtime statistics about the state of the Kovan testnet on the authorities netstats page.

Support
Get Assistance

Chat on Gitter

If you're having any issues or have questions about Kovan, join us on Gitter and we'll do our best to help you out.

KIPs
Kovan Improvement Proposals

View Proposals

Kovan is evolving and there are exciting bleeding edge features on the Horizon. Learn more and contribute on Github.

Get Started
Deploy Ethereum Smart Contracts on Kovan Today!

1. Connect to Kovan
Kovan RPC Services

There are a few options for connecting to Kovan. Here are the two most popular:

Install Parity

Parity is a popular Ethereum client that is easily configurable to connect to Kovan. You can connect to Kovan by starting Parity with the following flags:

parity --chain kovan

Use Infura

You can also use Infura to connect to Kovan by specifying the following RPC URL:

https://kovan.infura.io
Infura Website

2. Get Free KETH
Kovan Faucet Services

"Faucets" allow you to acquire Kovan Ether without the need for mining.

Icarus Faucet

ParityTech has provided an automated SMS-verification Faucet service that allows you get a daily allowance of KETH.

Sign up for Icarus

Gitter Chat

You can also request KETH in the 'faucet' Gitter channel. Prominent contributers can receive larger amounts of KETH.

Gitter Faucet

Alternative Faucets

More Faucet services will become available over time. Watch this space!

3. Develop!
Deploy your Contracts

Once you have a Connection and some KETH, you're ready to go!

The Ethereum development ecosystem is ever-growing and you can use many of the same tools that you're already familiar with.

Truffle

Truffle is the most popular development framework for Ethereum. You can connect to Kovan in one of the following ways:

Use Parity and add the config to truffle.js:
kovan: {
  host: 'localhost',
  port: 8545,
  network_id: '42'
}
Use a ZeroClient Provider to connect to a remote RPC node such as Infura
Truffle Framework

Roadmap
The future of Kovan

Kovan Launched
Kovan initially launched with the founding validator set
Smart Contract Hard Fork
Parity adds support for Smart Contract based validator management
Automated Github Faucet Service
Additional batch of validators to be added using the Smart Contract
Validator Onboarding
Additional batch of validators to be added using the Smart Contract
Public Validator Signup
For additional openness and reliability, an application process will be launched to allow for more trusted validators
Protocol Enhancements
Additional features to improve the stability and functionality of the network

For more on the Kovan roadmap, check out the KIP milestones on github:

Kovan Github

Authorities
Who validates blocks on Kovan?

Attores
Blockchain Industries
Digix Global
Etherscan
GridSingularity
MakerDAO
Melonport
Parity Technologies
TenX
...more to come!

Soon, anyone will be able to apply to become a validator on Kovan!

Follow @kovan_testnet for updates
Kovan was announced on 6/3/17