A mainnet essentially means the main network of a blockchain. It is the final developed network on which the transactions are verified and recorded. The phrase “mainnet” refers to when a blockchain protocol has been fully created and implemented, which means that bitcoin transactions are broadcasted, verified, and stored on a blockchain. When a new blockchain is being developed, the development is done on the test network or test net.
Usually, a company will launch Initial Coin Offering or initial exchange offering events to raise funds which will be used to develop a test network. Once the security of the testnet has been verified and bugs have been fixed, the mainnet is launched.
Now, if a testnet is launched on a third-party network to migrate the transactions to their own network, a mainnet swap takes place. So all the crypto tokens are replaced by the main net native crypto and all the activity is moved to the new chain.
Mainnet swap may have its own regulations depending on the network to network- some may require users to migrate by a particular deadline, or else the network’s team does the job itself. A mainnet swap may occur from network switches even when a protocol is updated for a particular currency.
