From: Peter Todd <pete@petertodd•org>
To: Jameson Lopp <jameson.lopp@gmail•com>
Cc: bitcoindev@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [bitcoindev] The Future of Bitcoin Testnet
Date: Sun, 31 Mar 2024 16:02:29 +0000 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <ZgmJFfXnQddkTQVq@petertodd.org> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <CADL_X_eXjbRFROuJU0b336vPVy5Q2RJvhcx64NSNPH-3fDCUfw@mail.gmail.com>
[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 2311 bytes --]
On Sun, Mar 31, 2024 at 09:19:50AM -0400, 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?
If we fix the difficulty reset bug, we might as well also fix the coin supply
issue: get rid of the halving for testnet and just make every block create new
coins.
--
https://petertodd.org 'peter'[:-1]@petertodd.org
--
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 bitcoindev+unsubscribe@googlegroups•com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/bitcoindev/ZgmJFfXnQddkTQVq%40petertodd.org.
[-- Attachment #2: signature.asc --]
[-- Type: application/pgp-signature, Size: 833 bytes --]
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2024-03-31 16:25 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
2024-03-31 17:21 ` Eric Voskuil
2024-04-09 18:28 ` Garlo Nicon
2024-03-31 16:02 ` Peter Todd [this message]
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
Reply instructions:
You may reply publicly to this message via plain-text email
using any one of the following methods:
* Save the following mbox file, import it into your mail client,
and reply-to-all from there: mbox
Avoid top-posting and favor interleaved quoting:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posting_style#Interleaved_style
* Reply using the --to, --cc, and --in-reply-to
switches of git-send-email(1):
git send-email \
--in-reply-to=ZgmJFfXnQddkTQVq@petertodd.org \
--to=pete@petertodd$(echo .)org \
--cc=bitcoindev@googlegroups.com \
--cc=jameson.lopp@gmail$(echo .)com \
/path/to/YOUR_REPLY
https://kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/git-send-email.html
Be sure your reply has a Subject: header at the top and a blank line
before the message body.
This is a public inbox, see mirroring instructions
for how to clone and mirror all data and code used for this inbox