# Dash announces new update, social payment wallet enters testnet

Dash has moved development work on the v0.17 of its platform to the testnet phase according to an announcement released on Wednesday. Back in July, Cointelegraph reported that the Dash Core Group was looking to release the platform testnet before the end of the year.

As part of the announcement, Dash revealed that the testnet environment being five times larger than Evonet which is almost exclusively owned by the Dash Core Group. According to Dana Alibrandi, the head of product at Dash:

“This is the biggest deployment of Dash Platform, and consequently, this release marks the most significant milestone in the realization of Dash’s long term vision for mainstream adoption.”

Detailing the protocol upgrades contained in the v0.17 update, Dash revealed that it has patched an infinite credit minting vulnerability. The v0.17 release also includes features to improve full light client support.

With v0.17 now in testnet, Dash says the release of v0.18 is the next item on the agenda. This new upgrade slated for late January or early February will feature more protocol improvements for light clients as well as enhanced functionality for iOS and Android apps within the Dash platform.

Dash also announced the release of DashPay to the public alpha phase. DashPay is a social crypto payments wallet with human-readable addresses via the Dash Platform Name Service layer.

While some other crypto businesses offer human-readable usernames for transactions within a closed wallet ecosystem, Dash has previously claimed that its service is native to the blockchain itself.

Other features also include contact lists and avatars which the company says will improve payment convenience. The full public launch of the social payment wallet is scheduled for later in 2021.