The plan is still the same: testnet 2 will be released around March, 14th.

It will include the following:

• Used cryptographic group is replaced with secp256k1 (used in Bitcoin)
• Header is of constant size as interlinks vector (described in KLS16 paper http://fc16.ifca.ai/bitcoin/papers/KLS16.pdf )
• Networking protocol is now versioned (to allow updates in future), also a peer now is signalling its operation (full node, light node storing all the blocks, or number of last blocks stored etc). 
• Memory pool reworked
• Language interpreter reworked, many operations added to the language, included operations on authenticated trees (it allows to do ICO/LETS systems and other complex contracts with dynamic data, more examples soon)
• Foundation script and bootstrapping method are finalized
• Tokens per transaction limit has been removed: now every token, input, and output has some cost (adjustable via miners voting), which is added to the total computational cost of the transaction (thus costs a node is bearing to parse and check a transaction are explicitly defined).

No major changes after Testnet2, only finishing some things in the language interpreter, security audit, networking protocol improvements etc. Thus the team already feels the heat of the Ergo starship launch.

Also, ErgoScript tutorial will be published within next few days.

Testnet 2.0 release date is planned to be around March, 14th.

This [PRE-ANN] topic will be abandoned after that, and a new [ANN] topic will be started.

2.0 conceptually will be very close to mainnet.

Security audit will be started about the same time.

More quick facts on Ergo:

Ergo has Bitcoin-like UTXO transactional model. Namely, a transaction is spending one-time objects and creating new one-time objects. We call this object a box. A box is immutable object which could be only created or removed. A box is not simply a coin, rather, it is contains registers with data (and code). Even more, there's nothing in box but registers. There are four predefined registers, with monetary value, protecting script, and identifier of a transaction which created the box and output index in the transaction (and also creation height). Because data of transaction which created the box is included into it, the box has unique contents and thus unique id. A box is first-class citizen in the Ergo protocol. Active boxes set is authenticated via a hash-based data structure, which allows to build lightweight full-nodes (as described in https://eprint.iacr.org/2016/994). A box may have up to six additional registers with typed data. A script may access its registers (as welll as registers of input and output boxes of the spending transaction).

This design with immutable boxes is more friendly to light clients than a cryptocurrency with long-living accounts (such as Nxt and Ethereum), see e.g. https://eprint.iacr.org/2018/968 , and also simpler in regards with some security problems.

We have some more example contracts:

• Rock-Paper-Scissor game contract, which is widely covered in Ethereum tutorials
• Non-interactive tumbler: Alice creates a coin on the chain and then just listens to incoming transactions. Bob comes and do mixing, in the way that new coins created by mixing transactions
  are indistinguishable to external observer, one coin could be spent only by Alice, another only by Bob, and this is ensured by the Alice's coin contract!

Code and unfinished documentation are online: https://github.com/ScorexFoundation/sigmastate-interpreter/pull/380

Thanks! Let me answer you along with providing some update.

2.0 will include almost all the features previously planned  as 2.x. Thus this testnet release will be pretty much like the mainnet. The biggest question to solve after 2.0 testnet is about
soft-forkability, i.e. decide rules how the protocol can evolve in the mainnet with no hardforks (so with miners consent and old nodes continuing to operate on the old chain after a fork).

Other issues are audit to be done, specification finalization etc.

Thus the biggest problems we are going to have in order to launch are not just about the reference implementation  but the infrastructure:

• Some guys are doing reference GPU miner, however, we would like to organizer GPU miners contest as well, as ZCash guys did.
• Wallet development. We are going to switch to secp256k1 (Bitcoin's) from current choice of 25519 (Nxt / Waves Monero) we're using now. We have some Wallet API in the reference client implementation, some UI is needed.
• Foundation formation, exchanges etc
• EFYT <-> Ergo swapping rules

So the precise dates are going to be defined not just on tech, unfortunately or not.

Come to us to help Ergo to grow!

We co-organized a meetup in Hong Kong  (thanks GenesisBlock HK!) https://www.meetup.com/genesisblockhk/events/257300607/.

Voting code is polished and will be merged in the beginning of the coming week. Voting specification will be published within next few days.

I'm going to work towards Testnet 2.0.

I think to start uncovering Ergo details here.

It will be ~100 million Ergs, and emission will be done in just 10 years. Each Erg is consisting of 1 billion smallest units called nanoErgs.

What will replace emission? How miners will survive? Here we solve few problems with one shot. Namely, we use demurrage to stabilize miners income, and also to have dust cleaning procedure, reduce blockchain bloat, and return lost coins into circulation.

How demurrage is implemented? If a coin is not being touched for 4 years, anyone (presumably, a miner) may spend the coin, but it is needed to recreate the coin with all the fields to be the same but monetary value which is to be reduced by "storageFee" max. Storage fee is defined by coin size in bytes, and pricing factor (cost to store 1 byte for 4 years). The pricing factor default value is 1,250,000 nanoErgs/byte, and the factor could be readjusted via miners voting withing the range (0; 2,500,000), thus miners can potentially switch off demurrage by setting the coefficient to 0.

Also, to avoid creation of coins not profitable to spend, there is another parameter in the system, minimum value per byte of a coin. Default value for this parameter is 360 nanoErgs/byte, and possible range is (0, 10000).

Some simulations for default values:

Storage fee factor: 1250000
Output size: 107 B
Simple tx size: 350 B
Block size: 512000 B
Storage fee for ordinary output: 0.13375 Erg
Min dust value of standard-size box: 38520 nanoErgs
=====================
Assume that Ergo state has the same number of outputs (60000000), as in Bitcoin.
Reward per block: 7.63 Erg + tx fees

 
(please note block size adjustable by miners as well)

1.9.0 is ready, but we postponed the release to avoid stressful holidays. Also, there is some good rework in progress towards block extension section.
A block in Ergo is consisting of few parts: header, transactions, proofs of state transformations (for non-mining fullnode willing to avoid storing the state), and also extension with additional data. It will contain current system parameters (in the first block of an epoch), interlink vector(for PoPoW), and from now, via softfork it will be possible to add more standardized data there, with non-updated node skipping validation.

So 1.9.0 will be released right after New Year.

A next step is to finalize elliptic curve being used, after that 2.0.0 will be released immediately. No much coding work here, only research.

UTXO snapshot downloading (alternative to "warp" or "fast" mode in Parity/Geth clients of Ethereum) is also done and will be released as 1.9.1 of 2.0.1.


And now we would like to get in touch with GPU mining software developers! Please spread the word about that!

Voting system is under review https://github.com/ergoplatform/ergo/pull/540. This is about testnet 1.9.0 and the last big change before testnet 2.0 (which will be different from 1.9 in transactional language interpreter update, which is already mostly done, and also review of cryptographic primitives used).

We also have changes for 1.8.1, will be out in next few days.

PoW code is still under review, current plan is to release 1.8  with PoW around Tue.

Voting System is getting soft-fork voting and activation rules, maybe 1.9 with it will be out next Fri.