Neo X TestNet v0.6.0 adds Ethereum Osaka fork support, Geth v1.16.9 base

Neo X TestNet has been upgraded to v0.6.0 “Rarefaction,” introducing support for Ethereum’s Osaka fork, a rebased Geth v1.16.9 foundation, and the new BEACON/2 P2P protocol for improved network synchronization. The release is fully compatible with Neo X v0.5.3. The release, announced by Neo Global Development on June 11, continues the chain’s pattern of tracking upstream Ethereum execution layer changes.

Neo X is built as a fork of Geth, Ethereum’s Go-based client implementation, maintained by Bane Labs. As such, it inherits execution layer upgrades from Ethereum’s roadmap. The v0.6.0 update is the latest in a series of TestNet releases that have progressively modernized Neo X’s architecture, following the post-merge model introduced in v0.5.2 earlier this year.

Osaka fork activation

Osaka is the execution layer component of Ethereum’s Fusaka upgrade, which combined the Fulu consensus layer with Osaka and went live on Ethereum MainNet in December 2025. Neo X TestNet will activate Osaka at Unix timestamp 1781500000, approximately June 15 at 5:06 a.m. (UTC).

BEACON/2 protocol and EIP-4844 improvements

The release introduces BEACON/2, an updated version of the beacon P2P protocol first deployed in v0.5.2. The new protocol version improves transaction synchronization through a proposal-aware search cache, block synchronization via handshake-triggered fetcher notifications, and blob synchronization with an improved sidecar fetcher. Older beacon protocol versions will be removed in future releases, making the upgrade essential for continued network participation.

EIP-4844 blob transaction support, initially introduced in v0.5.0 and expanded with dedicated storage and query APIs in v0.5.2, has also been further improved. The release notes do not specify the exact changes, though related bug fixes address blob synchronization configuration and sidecar fetcher behavior.

Geth v1.16.9 security fixes

The underlying Geth codebase has been updated to v1.16.9, a security hotfix that addresses P2P-layer vulnerabilities CVE-2026-26314 and CVE-2026-26315. The Ethereum Foundation recommended that operators recreate P2P node keys following the update. Node operators running Neo X TestNet infrastructure should be aware of this guidance.

Additional improvements include upgraded execution-layer downloader support for post-merge backfilling, light verification for consensus-layer beacon trust extension, and refactored synchronization status checks. Bug fixes address issues with dBFT seal hash computation, transaction replacement behavior, and RPC error responses for under-priced transactions.

Upgrade path

The update is a compatible rolling upgrade that requires no chain reset. Operators upgrading from v0.5.3 should download the new binary and genesis file, stop the node, replace the binary, initialize the database with the new genesis file using geth init, and restart. However, as with the v0.5.2 release, the P2P protocol migration means nodes running versions older than v0.5.2 can no longer receive execution-layer block broadcasts. Operators are urged to upgrade promptly to maintain synchronization.

No MainNet deployment timeline has been announced for v0.6.0. The full release notes can be found at the link below:
https://github.com/bane-labs/go-ethereum/releases/tag/v0.6.0