Migration Path Acurast – The Guide To Mainnet
As Acurast approaches its Mainnet launch and TGE soon, it’s important to understand the upcoming technical changes and what users need to do to ensure a smooth transition. Whether you’re already running Acurast Processors, or planning to join after launch, this guide explains what will change, what “migration” actually means, and how you can prepare for it.
Understanding Acurast’s Mainnet and TGE
So far, the project has been running on Canary, which is the test network. Rewards here are issued as cACU, which can be seen as ‘test tokens’.
Once Mainnet is live, rewards for processors running on Mainnet will be issued in ACU, the native token of the ecosystem. With the Token Generation Event (TGE) marking this transition, ACU becomes the real, tradable token that can be held, staked, and used in governance and other evolving utilities across the live network
What do I need to do to migrate from Canary to Mainnet?
When Mainnet goes live, there will be a migration option on the Acurast Hub. Migration must be initiated from the Acurast Hub, not from the mobile app. Both Lite and Core processors follow the same flow.
There will be two migration functions: One is to migrate your processors from Canary to Mainnet. The other is to migrate your funds from Canary to Mainnet.
IMPORTANT: First of all, make sure you are not actively staking on Canary. You need to be fully unstaked to start the process.
Update and Migrate your Acurast Processors from Canary to Mainnet
Before you can migrate your processors to Mainnet, they need to be updated to version 1.22.0 (Android) or 1.6.0 (iOS). Ths is crucial, without this update, they will not be able to move to Mainnet. Once they all updated, you can proceed to migrate the processors.
To migrate your Processors, go to the phones section of the Acurast Hub and find the migration function.
You’ll sign a migration request and your processors will enter migration mode, temporarily stop any active deployments, and then reconnect to the network on Mainnet. The processors will be attached to the same manager account on Mainnet as they were on Canary. Within 30 minutes you are migrated. Once the migration is successful, your processors will begin earning ACU on Mainnet rather than cACU on Canary.
Afterward, it will permanently operate on Mainnet. There’s no going back to Canary once the migration is complete.
IMPORTANT: Make sure that you end Staking on Canary BEFORE you start migrating your processors. If you migrate your processors without unstaking, your Current Compute on Canary will drop and your Stake will become open for slashing.
Migrate your funds from Canary to Mainnet within 90 days
Once Mainnet is live, go to the balance section of the Acurast Hub to start the process of moving your funds.
There is a separate migration function for the funds your account accumulated on Canary. You will sign a fund migration request from your manager account. Then all of your cACU tokens (except for an existential minimum) will be burned on the Canary network and the same account will appear as locked ACU tokens on Mainnet.
IMPORTANT: cACU can only be migrated from Canary cACU to Mainnet ACU within 90 days of the TGE. After those 90 days, the Migration will be deactivated and cACU can NEVER be migrated to Mainnet ACU AGAIN!
IMPORTANT: Make sure that you end Staking on Canary ahead of time BEFORE you start migrating your funds. Cooldown on Canary can take up to 2 days, depending on what you did select when creating the stake.
You can still earn cACU on Canary after the Mainnet launch, but after three months from TGE the migration window for cACU ends and the cACU cannot be migrated to Mainnet anymore.
Troubleshooting Your Processor Migration
The migration request is valid for only 4 hours. If some of your processors haven’t migrated within that time, you should repeat the process (go to the hub, click the button, wait).
If something goes wrong and the processor has migrated to Mainnet on the hub, but it hasn’t switched to Mainnet on the processor app, you can try again by clearing the cache from the settings inside the Acurast app and restarting the device.
FAQ
What is the right order to do all of this?
1. Unstake your stakes on Canary. Make sure to do that BEFORE the 90 day window ends. Unstaking comes with a cooldown of up to two days!
2. Migrate your funds from Canary to Mainnet
3. Migrate your processors from Canary to Mainnet
(PS. Important is that you unstake ahead of time. The order of step 2 and 3. is irrelevant.)
What if I want my funds and processors on a different account on Mainnet than on Canary? Can I split up accounts?
Migration strictly happens between the exact same account on Canary as on Mainnet. If you want to transfer to different accounts you need to do that BEFORE the migration and on Canary. Some limitations apply:
Transfer Processors: Processors from one account can only be migrated as a whole from Canary to Mainnet and they will be assigned to the same manager account as before. It is possible to transfer all processors on Canary from one account to another, but only ALL processors at once and only to a fresh and unused Acurast account. You cannot split up processors between accounts, you cannot “send” processors to existing accounts that already have processors or tokens.
Transfer Tokens: Tokens from one account can only be migrated as a whole from Canary to Mainnet and they will be assigned to the same manager account as before. But before the Migration function is activated, token transfers will also be activated on Canary. This means you can decide to split up funds between different Canary accounts BEFORE migrating them to mainnet. Once the funds are migrated, they will be locked and cannot move again, until they are unlocked. See Conversion about the locking mechanism that kicks in after migration.
What happens to my Stake when I migrate from Canary to Mainnet or when I transfer processors to a different account?
You must unstake and wait for the cooldown to end, before you can migrate to mainnet. As the cooldown can take up to 48 hours, you should absolutely trigger unstake before the migration window of 90 days ends.
You must unstake if you want to move your processors to a different account, the account with the stake will suddenly lose all of its compute and you will be exposed to staking penalties. It’s the same as if you would suddenly cut your internet connection.
What are the other steps I need to take after the Migration?
After the migration, your new ACU tokens will be locked. After a minimum of 84 days after your migration, you can decide to unlock the ACU tokens. The moment you unlock, a conversion ratio will be applied, based on the time passed since you migrated the funds.
Conversion is explained here: https://docs.acurast.com/from-canary-to-mainnet/overview#conversion
Independent if your ACU tokens are still locked from the Migration, you can decide to stake them on Mainnet, just as you did on Canary. Carefully select the parameters, as the minimum and maximum cooldown periods on Mainnet are much longer than on Canary.
Staking is explained here: https://docs.acurast.com/staked-compute/mainnet-vs-canary#staking-on-acurast-mainnet
Do processors on Mainnet also need gas? Is there a faucet?
On Mainnet processors will be automatically funded for their initial interactions with the network, if the manager account does not have any funds. A faucet does not exist for Mainnet. For a new processor, its manager account is assigned a tiny amount needed to register on the network and to send heartbeats. The amount of funding for a manager account that onboards several processors is limited, to disincentivize people from onboarding the same device over and over again. After a while, the rewards received, will be enough to fund these interactions.
What can I do with cACU that I receive on Canary AFTER I did the migration for this account?
Migration can only be triggered once for one account. If you receive cACU after you migrated the tokens to Mainnet, and the Migration window is still open, you’ll need to transfer these tokens to a fresh account and trigger the Migration there.
When does the lock time on Mainnet start?
The lockup for ACU tokens which were migrated from Canary starts with the Migration. As users have a 90 day window to migrate, the lockup start time will vary from user to user, depending on when they triggered the migration. A user can then unlock their ACU on mainnet after the minimum lockup time of roughly 84 days, at the defined ratio as outlined in the documentation.
