Tari’s Layer 2 network, the Ootle, went live on mainnet on November 11, 2026, the date the project’s council set in September. The Tari Council’s September update describes the Ootle as “programmable privacy, on a decentralized network, secured by L1 Proof-of-Work.” On launch day, builders in Tari’s first-to-launch contest thread posted contracts published on mainnet, and the Ootle software released on November 12 now points to mainnet by default.
What the Ootle adds to Tari
Tari’s base layer is a proof-of-work chain whose coin is XTM. The Ootle sits on top of it and runs smart contracts, which the code calls templates. The tari-ootle repository is BSD-3 licensed and builds with Rust and a WebAssembly target. Builders’ launch posts describe confidential and stealth payments as part of what their apps use.
The Ootle’s token is TARI. In the Tari Universe changelog, version 1.6.22 renamed the Layer 2 balance from XTR to TARI, while the base-layer balance stays XTM.
How XTM becomes TARI
Tari Universe 1.6.21, released November 6, opened a mainnet Layer 2 panel before launch. It showed a countdown, a running total of XTM burned and a Burn button. The changelog says users could “burn from your Tari wallet now and claim it on L2 once the Ootle is up,” and it tells them to save the proof of each burn, because the proof is needed to claim. Version 1.6.23, released November 10, matched a change in how the Ootle handles burn claims and now works out the claim fee itself instead of taking the network’s quote.
What node operators and developers need to know
The v0.53.2 release on November 12 says validators must upgrade together, because changes to engine metering and confidential validation take effect with no activation epoch. The wallet daemon’s network setting now defaults to mainnet. Testnet users must pass the Esmeralda network explicitly. Transactions that pass workspace values as arguments cost more, so developers should re-estimate fees.
The same day, v0.53.3 fixed a bug in reading fee receipts over JSON-RPC. Its notes tell app and SDK developers not to use the 0.53.2 crates for that and to upgrade.
Launch contests
The council is running monthly builder contests through December, with top prizes of 1 million XTM. A bonus pays 100,000 XTM to each of the first 20 contest entrants to publish on mainnet, with entries due by November 21. For background on contract platforms, see our explainer on what a smart contract is.
