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

From: Calvin Kim <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 4 Apr 2024 01:14:21 -0700 (PDT)

Throwing myself into the conversation because I think there's other devs 
that use testnet like I do.
I mainly use testnet for checking if the utreexod implementation I'm 
building runs into consensus
bugs due to the havoc of how testnet creates bursts of blocks and how it 
reorganizes itself. I find
the unpredictability a feature.

> 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.

For my usage I never really see this as a problem since signet already 
provides that usecase. While
I can empathize with devs struggling to get coins, there's always signet 
for the usecase of testing
scripts/wallets. Signet doesn't really provide the same feature for my 
usecase. 

> 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/

I stated this above but I find this as a feature.

> 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.

Could I get links/sources for this? I'm curious as to how big of a problem 
this is.

> 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.

Same for this. Would appreciate links/evidence.

> 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?

I lean towards no unless the problem with testnet coins being valued is too 
significant.

> 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?

Again, I'd lean towards keeping it the same.

> 3. Is all of the above a waste of time and we should instead deprecate 
testnet in favor of signet?

No as signet doesn't have the features I find valuable in testnet.

Best,
Calvin

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