How does Max get his hair so silky? Listen now!

This week’s edition of Midweek with Max covered the latest developments in Hemi’s path toward Mainnet, infrastructure upgrades, and upcoming incentives. Hemi’s community manager, Rick, led the discussion with co-founder Max Sanchez. Batman was absent due to his ongoing efforts to save Gotham, but the session moved forward with key updates on the project.

Max started by addressing the progress on Mainnet. While there hasn’t been a major update since Friday, things continue to move behind the scenes. A Mainnet protocol upgrade took place that morning, and everything went smoothly. The Hemi network daemons for the final release are now running on the private Mainnet. The team is focused on infrastructure testing and deploying necessary components before the public release. Proxyd, which has been active on testnet for two weeks, is providing scalable and reliable RPCs. Some final improvements are being made to transaction propagation, with load testing underway to ensure stability.

Mainnet remains private for now, allowing partners to set up their dApps and infrastructure before the public launch. There are no incentives or points for interacting with Mainnet at this stage, but details about the incentive structure will be announced well in advance. The goal is to avoid last-minute scrambling by ensuring users have time to prepare their assets and strategies before the Mainnet incentives go live.

As expected, questions from the community focused on Mainnet timing, testnet incentives, and upcoming releases. The launch remains on track, and the testnet incentives will conclude shortly before the public Mainnet launch. Once Mainnet is live, the first round of incentives will begin. The token generation event (TGE) is still planned for four to six weeks after the Mainnet release.

The session also covered updates on Hemi Hatchlings NFTs. These will migrate to Mainnet, with users either receiving or claiming their NFTs. There will be at least one NFT marketplace available at or shortly after Mainnet launch, allowing users to trade their hatchlings. Additional plans for these NFTs are in the works, with further announcements expected post-Mainnet.

Infrastructure costs for running a node were another point of discussion. To address concerns, Hemi is working with infrastructure partners who will offer node hosting services at a competitive rate. This will allow users to delegate their node licenses to professional infrastructure providers, reducing operational complexity.

One of the biggest topics was the testnet faucet. Originally intended as a temporary suspension, it will not be returning. The faucet faced significant abuse, with large-scale gaming draining available testnet Bitcoin. Despite multiple security measures, the team had to shift focus to Mainnet preparations. Users were reminded that purchasing testnet tokens is not recommended.

On the PoP mining front, the community requested a leaderboard, which Max agreed would be a useful addition. While not included in the initial points update, the team will explore adding it in the future. The updated pop mining dashboard will provide daily breakdowns of how points are calculated, offering transparency into rewards.

The session ended with a mix of serious and lighthearted moments. Questions ranged from technical concerns to Max’s secret for maintaining silky hair. His answer? Use conditioner and don’t wash it too often. There was also some discussion about caffeine-fueled anxiety, Ghostbusters-themed engineering names, and a failed attempt to get Max to name the worst crypto movie he has ever seen.

You’ll have to listen to find out what fine film(s) he named.