How did PulseChain development start?
The execution client repository go-pulse was created on the official GitLab on 2021-03-24, and its first tag, 0.1.0, followed on 2021-05-25. These are development markers, not launches.
When was the PulseChain sacrifice?
From 2021-07-15 to 2021-08-03. Those are the dates the court gives in its 2025 decision in SEC v. Schueler (ECF 57), where it summarises the complaint; the original sacrifice pages on pulsechain.com are no longer online. The PulseX sacrifice followed from 2021-12-29 to 2022-02-26 (same source; see PulseX). The legal case itself is covered on the legal timeline.
In the project’s own terms, a sacrifice was sending crypto to a published address as a statement, with the prospect of receiving the new chain’s coins if it launched — the project did not describe it as a purchase. The result is visible in the code: the client writes the sacrifice credits into the chain in the fork block, from a credit file published in the official compressed-allocations repository. The same file also credits PulseX sacrificers and Ethereum beacon-chain depositors.
What were the testnets?
| Testnet | Dates | Marker in the official repositories |
|---|---|---|
| V1 | 2021-09-21 / 2021-09-28 | Client tag 0.4.0; public testnet guide with tPLS faucet instructions |
| V2 (“R2”) | 2021-12-07 / 2021-12-10 | Guide updated; client 0.5.0 tagged |
| V2b | 2022-03-19 / 2022-03-20 | Guide for testnet-v2-b; client 0.8.0 tagged |
| V3 | 2023-03-13 / 2023-03-22 | Documentation; go-pulse v1.0.0 released (“Testnet-V3”) |
| V4 | 2023-04-14 / 2023-04-19 | Documentation; go-pulse v2.0.0 released, beacon-chain settings adjusted to correct issuance and validator returns, Testnet V3 removed from the client. Still public on 2026-10-17 |
Dates are repository tags, releases and commits; the public announcements of each testnet are not dated here because they are not yet sourced. Testnet V4 (chain ID 943) copied Ethereum’s state at block 16,492,699 (2023-01-26 18:11:35 UTC) and forked at 16,492,700. Its guide lists Ethereum-style Proof of Stake, 10-second slots, validator reward burning, support for two execution and two consensus clients, and the sacrifice credits already written. In the client code the reward burn means a validator is credited 62.5 % of what Ethereum’s formula would pay — see the validator reward burn. Shanghai went live on V4 on 2023-04-28 at 16:46:09 UTC.
How did mainnet launch?
| Time (UTC) | Event |
|---|---|
| 2023-05-10 22:52:51 | Block 17,233,000 — the fork block, first block that differs from Ethereum (Ethereum’s own block 17,233,000 is at 22:36:23) |
| 2023-05-11 06:23:15 | Block 17,233,001 — first block under PulseChain’s beacon chain |
| 2023-05-11 06:28:35 | Shanghai active on PulseChain mainnet |
| 2023-05-11 13:08:55 | PLSX token contract deployed (block 17,235,435) |
| 2023-05-11 13:19:45 | PulseX v1 factory deployed (block 17,235,500) |
| 2023-05-13 00:43 | go-pulse v2.2.0 released: “PulseChain Mainnet Launch!”; the pulsechain-mainnet repository is created the same day |
| 2023-05-15 09:03:55 | Bridge token-mediator proxy deployed on PulseChain; its Ethereum counterpart follows at 09:04:59 (Ethereum block 17,264,177) |
| 2023-06-01 08:55:55 | PulseX v2 factory deployed (block 17,413,326) |
Block times from the PulseChain and Ethereum RPCs, deployment times from the explorers, releases from GitLab. On-chain production started on 11 May; the release by which the launch is commonly dated (for example by Coinmonks) came on 13 May. A contract deployment is not the public opening of an app — the opening dates of the bridge and the PulseX interface are not yet sourced.
What has changed since launch?
| Release | Date | What it changed |
|---|---|---|
| go-pulse v3.0.0 | 2023-07-03 | Rebased on go-ethereum 1.12.0; Proof-of-Work mining support removed |
| go-pulse v3.1.0 | 2023-12-20 | go-ethereum 1.13.5; path-based state storage |
| go-pulse v3.2.0 | 2024-02-23 | go-ethereum 1.13.13; Cancun support compiled in but not activated on PulseChain |
| go-pulse v3.3.0 | 2025-09-30 | go-ethereum 1.16.3; newer Ethereum forks supported for compatibility, PulseChain stays on Shanghai + Capella |
These are client releases, not network forks. As of 2026-10-17, v3.3.0 is the latest release and PulseChain mainnet has activated no Ethereum upgrade after Shanghai / Capella. All dates of HEX, PulseChain and PulseX in one place: Timeline.