Hey ho - we've been quietly building away over at Status, and are pretty happy to announce a first public test network for what will become the next version of Ethereum, one of the block chains out there: [https://our.status.im/the-nimbus-mvp-testnet-is-here](https://our.status.im/the-nimbus-mvp-testnet-is-here)/
Have a look at the code, give it a spin and let us know how it went :)
