Subject: Re: [bitcoindev] The Future of Bitcoin Testnet

From: Luke Dashjr <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 31 Mar 2024 10:33:22 -0400

Is the difficulty reset bug actually a bug, or a feature?

If it's a bug, couldn't we just fix it and let the blockchain reorg on 
its own?

Signet is definitely not a replacement for testnet.

Luke

On 3/31/24 09:19, 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/
>
> 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
> -- 
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google 
> Groups "Bitcoin Development Mailing List" group.
> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send 
> an email to [email-masked].
> To view this discussion on the web visit 
> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/bitcoindev/CADL_X_eXjbRFROuJU0b336vPVy5Q2RJvhcx64NSNPH-3fDCUfw%40mail.gmail.com 
> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/bitcoindev/CADL_X_eXjbRFROuJU0b336vPVy5Q2RJvhcx64NSNPH-3fDCUfw%40mail.gmail.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>.

-- 
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Bitcoin Development Mailing List" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email-masked].
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/bitcoindev/8c6e98ff-bdec-4955-8132-bd93af2d40dd%40dashjr.org.