The Terra project is one of the most exciting new developments in cryptocurrency, with Terra’s Testnet now live and adoption growing every day.
It’s important to understand how to access the network and use its test tokens, or testnet coins to play around with the network and build your products and services.
There are a lot of resources on how to use Testnet already, but many of them are complicated and technical, so here’s a simple beginner-friendly guide on how to use terra testnet, so you can get started without hassle.
What Is Terra Testnet?

The terra testnet is a Proof-of-Work blockchain that runs on the terra daemon and enables developers to test new features and upgrades before using the terra mainnet.
Some features of the terra testnet include checkpoints, locking blocks, and expiry dates. Checkpoints are used to prevent miners from continuing work if they do not have the latest version of the code, or if it has been updated.
Locking blocks prevent an unverified block from being added to the chain if it was mined by an unknown miner or a miner with an older version of terra software than what is currently running.
How To Get Started With Terra Testnet
You can get started with using the terra testnet by creating a password and registering an account.
- 1. Create an account on the dashboard
Once you have your account, go ahead and click the Developer tab at the top of the page. You will see a list of tutorials on the left-hand side that leads you through various methods for developing with terra test.
The first tutorial will teach you how to create your first application from scratch. Clicking it will take you to a tutorial where you can create an app in under 5 minutes using Codebender and Brackets.
To get started all you need is the following:
- An email address – If you don’t already have one, we recommend using Gmail or Yahoo! All emails end up being verified anyways so there’s no harm in picking one of these.
- A password – Follow this link if you want some help coming up with one. When choosing a password make sure it’s at least 8 characters long and contains letters, numbers, symbols, etc.
- 2. Create an account on the block explorer
To get started, head over to terra.test and click on the Get Started button in the top right corner of the screen. Then fill out your email address, create a password and click Sign Up.
After you confirm your email address, log in using your credentials. You will be prompted to create a new wallet by entering a name for it.
You can enter anything, but the default is recommended since this is just for testing purposes. Once you have created your wallet, make sure that you keep it safe because once this one is used up, there will be no way to recover it.
- 2. Fund your account from your wallet
To use terra testnet, visit the launch page and enter your email address and click Get Started. This will send you an email with a registration link.
Fill out the form and select which tokens you would like to fund your account with – terra token or bitcoin. You can buy terra tokens from the Markets page for 0.00004 ETH per TERRA.
Once funded, you’ll be able to create an account on testnet by clicking on the wallet icon at the top of the screen and then selecting Create New Account.
Once this is done, log in using your credentials and wait for transaction confirmation (it usually takes less than five minutes). The easiest way to get started is by visiting one of our community channels where someone should be able to help you if needed.
- 3. Sending funds from wallet to wallet
Make sure you are sending funds from your TERRA testnet wallet and not an exchange wallet by scanning the QR code with the wallet of the destination account.
After inputting your password, select how much Ethereum to send. The recipient address will pop up automatically if you have done this correctly.
Copy and paste this into the To Address field, enter a memo if desired, and hit Send. Your transaction should be instantaneously transferred once approved on both ends.
- 4. Send funds from an exchange to a wallet
To receive funds from an exchange, you need to first set up a personal wallet. Follow these steps for setting up a new wallet on the terra testnet network
- Click on Wallet in the top navigation bar and select Generate Key. You will be prompted to enter your desired username. Once done, a browser window should open with your newly generated public key.
- Copy and paste it into notepad or any other text editor of your choice as a backup, then click Save Private Key. For security reasons, never store your private key on your computer’s hard drive.
- Next, go back to the Wallet tab and select New Address.
- Paste the public address that was just generated in Step 1 and hit Create New Address.
- Sending funds from other wallets (Metamask, MyEtherWallet, Mist, Geth, Parity, etc.)
Before you can send funds from other wallets like Metamask, MyEtherWallet, Mist, Geth, or Parity please make sure that you already have funds in your account.
You can view your available balance and your private key (sending address) on the top left-hand side of the dashboard. Click add next to the private key if it is not already there.
Now paste the string that shows up into a text document. Make sure to keep this safe as this will be needed every time you need to access your account from another wallet.
You can then click “Send” at the bottom right-hand corner of the screen, input an amount and recipient address, and hit send!
Conclusion
This concludes the tutorial. I hope you enjoyed it and got something out of it. As always, if you have any questions or comments, please post them below or join our telegram channel using the information provided below. We will do our best to respond promptly. Thanks for reading!