I think the effort required to remove testnet entirely would be too much to 
work on. Replacing it with something else is a better idea to minimize 
disruption.

In the mean time, we need to figure out a process to at least lock down the 
testnet3 network so that no new blocks can be mined while the replacement 
chain is commissioned. Is there a BIP with a procedure for replacing 
testnet? How was it done last time?

-Ali

On Sunday, April 28, 2024 at 2:06:01 PM UTC Matt Corallo wrote:

It has always been very clearly communicated that if testnet starts being 
valued or traded it will 
be reset. There's some legitimate debate over parameters in a reset here, 
but in the mean time 
testnet3 has ceased to serve its intended purpose as a valueless test 
platform. Thus, it should at 
minimum be removed. 

On 3/31/24 9:19 AM, Jameson Lopp wrote: 
> Hi all, 
> 
> I'd like to open a discussion about testnet3 to put out some feelers on 
potential changes to it. 
> First, a few facts: 
> 
> 1. Testnet3 has been running for 13 years. It's on block 2.5 million 
something and the block reward 
> is down to ~0.014 TBTC, so mining is not doing a great job at 
distributing testnet coins any more. 
> 
> 2. The reason the block height is insanely high is due to a rather 
amusing edge case bug that causes 
> the difficulty to regularly get reset to 1, which causes a bit of havoc. 
If you want a deep dive 
> into the quirk: 
https://blog.lopp.net/the-block-storms-of-bitcoins-testnet/ 
> <https://blog.lopp.net/the-block-storms-of-bitcoins-testnet/> 
> 
> 3. Testnet3 is being actively used for scammy airdrops; those of us who 
tend to be generous with our 
> testnet coins are getting hounded by non-developers chasing cheap gains. 
> 
> 4. As a result, TBTC is being actively bought and sold; one could argue 
that the fundamental 
> principle of testnet coins having no value has been broken. 
> 
> This leads me to ponder the following questions, for which I'm soliciting 
feedback. 
> 
> 1. Should we plan for a reset of testnet? If so, given how long it has 
been since the last reset and 
> how many production systems will need to be updated, would a reset need 
to be done with a great deal 
> of notice? 
> 
> 2. Is there interest in fixing the difficulty reset bug? It should be a 
one liner fix, and I'd argue 
> it could be done sooner rather than later, and orthogonal to the network 
reset question. Would such 
> a change, which would technically be a hard fork (but also arguably a 
self resolving fork due to the 
> difficulty dynamics) necessitate a BIP or could we just YOLO it? 
> 
> 3. Is all of the above a waste of time and we should instead deprecate 
testnet in favor of signet? 
> 
> - Jameson 
> 
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