From: Jameson Lopp <jameson.lopp@gmail•com>
To: Luke Dashjr <luke@dashjr•org>
Cc: bitcoindev@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [bitcoindev] The Future of Bitcoin Testnet
Date: Sun, 31 Mar 2024 10:57:39 -0400 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <CADL_X_eZ3uDU7PPh11rn2NSGwvRMjjZ3Auu6eVVQoJU78+aRxQ@mail.gmail.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <8c6e98ff-bdec-4955-8132-bd93af2d40dd@dashjr.org>
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On Sun, Mar 31, 2024 at 10:33 AM Luke Dashjr <luke@dashjr•org> wrote:
> Is the difficulty reset bug actually a bug, or a feature?
>
> I haven't thought of or heard of any good reason why it's helpful to have
a dozen blocks per second flood the network for several days every time the
edge case gets hit.
> If it's a bug, couldn't we just fix it and let the blockchain reorg on its
> own?
>
I believe so. Upon closer inspection I think it's actually a soft forkable
fix if all we do is restrict the special testnet minimum difficulty rule so
that it can't be triggered on the block right before a difficulty retarget.
> 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
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next prev parent reply other threads:[~2024-03-31 16:24 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 40+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2024-03-31 13:19 Jameson Lopp
2024-03-31 14:33 ` Luke Dashjr
2024-03-31 14:57 ` Jameson Lopp [this message]
2024-03-31 17:21 ` Eric Voskuil
2024-04-09 18:28 ` Garlo Nicon
2024-03-31 16:02 ` Peter Todd
2024-03-31 21:01 ` Nagaev Boris
2024-03-31 21:29 ` Peter Todd
2024-04-01 12:54 ` Jameson Lopp
2024-04-01 13:37 ` Pieter Wuille
2024-04-01 14:20 ` Andrew Poelstra
2024-04-01 22:01 ` 'Fabian' via Bitcoin Development Mailing List
2024-04-02 11:53 ` Jameson Lopp
2024-04-02 18:36 ` Lukáš Kráľ
2024-04-02 19:46 ` Jameson Lopp
2024-04-03 4:19 ` Anthony Towns
2024-04-03 18:18 ` emsit
2024-04-03 19:35 ` Andrew Poelstra
2024-04-30 18:46 ` Matthew Bagazinski
2024-05-01 15:30 ` Garlo Nicon
2024-05-04 17:13 ` Peter Todd
2024-04-10 6:57 ` Garlo Nicon
2024-04-22 4:33 ` Ali Sherief
2024-04-01 13:25 ` Andrew Poelstra
2024-04-01 13:32 ` 'Fabian' via Bitcoin Development Mailing List
2024-04-01 14:28 ` Warren Togami
2024-04-01 19:22 ` [bitcoindev] " emsit
2024-04-04 8:14 ` Calvin Kim
2024-04-04 12:47 ` Jameson Lopp
2024-04-05 4:30 ` Calvin Kim
2024-04-06 23:04 ` David A. Harding
2024-04-09 16:48 ` Peter Todd
2024-04-16 17:30 ` [bitcoindev] " 'Sjors Provoost' via Bitcoin Development Mailing List
2024-04-07 7:20 ` [bitcoindev] " Christian Decker
2024-04-07 8:09 ` K Calvin
2024-04-08 19:11 ` Garlo Nicon
2024-04-09 4:29 ` coinableS
2024-04-28 13:45 ` [bitcoindev] " Matt Corallo
2024-05-02 7:10 ` Ali Sherief
2024-05-04 17:08 ` Peter Todd
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