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From: Jameson Lopp <jameson.lopp@gmail•com>
To: Calvin Kim <ccychc@gmail•com>
Cc: Bitcoin Development Mailing List <bitcoindev@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: [bitcoindev] Re: The Future of Bitcoin Testnet
Date: Thu, 4 Apr 2024 08:47:06 -0400	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <CADL_X_fs0OVAoFiekm3sLUyODXr6j7mh8M6zQV_dEyg05itE6A@mail.gmail.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <950b875a-e430-4bd8-870d-f9a9fab2493an@googlegroups.com>

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On Thu, Apr 4, 2024 at 4:29 AM Calvin Kim <ccychc@gmail•com> wrote:

> 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.
>
> SatoshiVM airdrop: https://twitter.com/lopp/status/1753522413466464756

Not sure how to prove that I'm inundated with beggars; I've probably gotten
50 messages on a variety of platforms this year from non-developers asking
for testnet coins.

> 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.
>
>
https://buytestnet.com/
https://altquick.com/exchange/market/BitcoinTestnet


> > 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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  reply	other threads:[~2024-04-04 13:02 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 40+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2024-03-31 13:19 [bitcoindev] " Jameson Lopp
2024-03-31 14:33 ` Luke Dashjr
2024-03-31 14:57   ` Jameson Lopp
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 [this message]
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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