Developers are debating resetting testnet.

[NotATether]

Look at this Google Groups discussion on the bitcoin-dev mailing list: https://groups.google.com/g/bitcoindev/c/9bL00vRj7OU

It was started by Jameson Lopp (there are reports about him executing a proof of concept flaw on the testnet that has apparently called what people are describing "havoc"? But it's testnet so it's not supposed to have any value attached to it.)

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

Consensus seems to be in favor of doing something about testnet. What exactly, nobody has agreed on yet. I have also made my opinions in there that testnet should be reset.

[ABCbits]

If some developer actually decide to create testnet4, i expect there'll be change on block reward/supply reward. Otherwise, troll or abuser would mine early to obtain 50 tBTC/block in order to sell it or spam testnet4 later.

[Stompix]

I would be more inclined to Todd opinion, testnet is for testing, you fix stuff that shouldn't go to the chain, if you can't fix the testnet and just reset it with new conditions then, what are you going to do on the main chain? I understand the problems are different and that they will not appear on the main one for decades but still, just as we needed a solution for the high fees 5 years ago and we still haven't got one the same could be applied to other issues. Bitcoins are divisible, there are plenty to test things, the difficulty adjustment will just be there as if they don't keep it a single guy who has nothing to do can crash it at any time with minimal gear.
So, for what?

[bitmover]

The problem looks to be that people are trading tBTC coins at https://altquick.com/exchange/
About 5usd por 15 tBTC last time I checked.

Also, there looks like to be some kind of airdrop for users who interact with testnet coins. I don't know any of those airdrops.

 do you?

[NotATether]

The problem looks to be that people are trading tBTC coins at https://altquick.com/exchange/
About 5usd por 15 tBTC last time I checked.

Also, there looks like to be some kind of airdrop for users who interact with testnet coins. I don't know any of those airdrops.

 do you?

I will refer you to this post: https://blog.lopp.net/griefing-bitcoin-testnet/

This is where Jameson Lopp demonstrates how he managed to amplify so many transactions on testnet in order to show people what kind of problem or vulnerability he has. He is not finished apparently.

So while I definitely disapprove of all the testnet trading and airdrops, it's all very brittle and easily falls apart when testnet blocks are accelerated.

[ABCbits]

I will refer you to this post: https://blog.lopp.net/griefing-bitcoin-testnet/

This is where Jameson Lopp demonstrates how he managed to amplify so many transactions on testnet in order to show people what kind of problem or vulnerability he has. He is not finished apparently.

So while I definitely disapprove of all the testnet trading and airdrops, it's all very brittle and easily falls apart when testnet blocks are accelerated.

So he finally write a blog about his action. I just know that there are 3 places to trade tBTC. It's also crazy some people/group intentionally make tBTC valuable, while intentionally ignoring known weakness on testnet network.

[bitmover]

I will refer you to this post: https://blog.lopp.net/griefing-bitcoin-testnet/

This is where Jameson Lopp demonstrates how he managed to amplify so many transactions on testnet in order to show people what kind of problem or vulnerability he has. He is not finished apparently.

So while I definitely disapprove of all the testnet trading and airdrops, it's all very brittle and easily falls apart when testnet blocks are accelerated.

So he finally write a blog about his action. I just know that there are 3 places to trade tBTC. It's also crazy some people/group intentionally make tBTC valuable, while intentionally ignoring known weakness on testnet network.

People just want to make money.

There are airdrops on tBtc, which is crazy imo.

If binance listed tBTC, the price would skyrocket as it is better than many altcoins lol

[ABCbits]

Jameson Lopp blog also mention some people working on testnet4, although so far i only find PR about fixing PoW difficulty[1]. And i just realize some people angry about testnet3 plan to be reset, even though actually developer simply create testnet4 network and end support for testnet3. That makes Jameson Lopp speculation about testnet3 attacked by BSV folks seems plausible.

--snip--
If binance listed tBTC, the price would skyrocket as it is better than many altcoins lol

It's certainly possible since they used to list Ordinal-based token and there's speculation they plan to list Rune-based token as well[2].

[1] https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/pull/29775
[2] https://decrypt.co/227613/centralized-exchanges-listing-bitcoin-runes-which-ones-next

[bitmover]

It's certainly possible since they used to list Ordinal-based token and there's speculation they plan to list Rune-based token as well[2].

I agree with Loop here.. I don't think it should be profitable to sell those tBTC.

I think tBTC is way better than most altcoins, but it isn't supposed to have any value. It should be really easy fast and free to get tons of tBTC, so nobody would ever think about buying it or speculating with it.

I am not opposed to airdrops for people who test new projects, as this is somehow a work, like beta testers.

[yhiaali3]

Honestly, I don't understand yet why tBTC has value to some people? If this is a testnet and this Bitcoin is not real and has no real value then why are some people interested in buying it? Why else are there interested in getting tBTC airdrops?

The only reason I can think of is that they are using it to scam, is that true? Or are there other uses?

[ABCbits]

I am not opposed to airdrops for people who test new projects, as this is somehow a work, like beta testers.

But surely you know those who claim airdrop usually only care about profit from selling token/coin they receive, rather than seriously test the project itself.

The only reason I can think of is that they are using it to scam, is that true? Or are there other uses?

Scam is probably most common reason, although i expect few developer would rather buy tBTC rather than mining or ask from faucet which could take more time.

[bitmover]

Honestly, I don't understand yet why tBTC has value to some people? If this is a testnet and this Bitcoin is not real and has no real value then why are some people interested in buying it? Why else are there interested in getting tBTC airdrops?

The only reason I can think of is that they are using it to scam, is that true? Or are there other uses?

It is scarse and hard to get.

TBTC is already in block 2million, which is equal to year 2061 in mainnet. Reward is basically zero so you can't mine it.

https://mempool.space/testnet

[garlonicon]

if you can't fix the testnet and just reset it with new conditions then, what are you going to do on the main chain?

This is a very good question, and I also posted it on the mailing list:

so mining is not doing a great job at distributing testnet coins any more

It is a feature, not a bug. Would people want to reset Bitcoin main network in the future, for exactly the same reasons? Or would they want to introduce "tail supply", or other similar inventions, to provide sufficient incentive for miners? This testnet3 is unique, because it has quite low block reward. And that particular feature should be preserved, even if the network would be resetted (for example, it could be "after 12 halvings, but where all previous coins were burned"). And not, it is not the same as starting from 50 tBTC, as long as fee rates are left unchanged (and 0.014 TBTC means "the ability to push around 1.4 MB of data, with feerate of 1 sat/vB", instead of 50 tBTC, which means "pushing 5 GB with the same feerate").

Honestly, I don't understand yet why tBTC has value to some people?

1. Because it is the only decentralized test network, which works continuously for more than a decade.
2. Because it has almost all rules, identical to the main network, so it doesn't contain a lot of mistakes and quirks, made by many altcoins.
3. Because the whole chainwork is enormously huge, if you compare it to other test networks, like signet or regtest.
4. Because it had a lot of halvings, so if you compare amounts, which you can get for free, then they are closer and closer to something, which you can get from real Bitcoin faucets.

If this is a testnet and this Bitcoin is not real and has no real value then why are some people interested in buying it?

Because it is great for data pushing, without being censored. If you use Ordinals on the main network, then someone may argue, that you stop the real payments from being processed. But in testnet, coins are supposed to be worthless, so publishing your test cases is the only thing you are supposed to do.

Also note that testnet allowed non-standard transactions by default in a lot of old versions of Bitcoin Core (it was changed in some recent releases, like 26.0). Which means, that there are a lot of miners, actively including non-standard transactions into blocks, and many people rely on that assumption. And that allows pushing data in more efficient ways than on mainnet, and also performing more tricks than usual, for example by not using any address type, and relying on raw Scripts (because then, you don't need any workaround for informing other users about the script behind your challenge in a decentralized way).

Or are there other uses?

There are many use cases for a test network. Even if you would have a chain with zero supply, where all coins would not pass any value, then still, there are a lot of consensus rules, which are active. For example: the whole Script is followed to the letter, even if you send zero satoshis. All locktimes, difficulty adjustments, and many other rules are preserved. And the whole protection from chain reorganization is still active, even if you have some chain with no coins.

Note that in testnet3, there is one main reason, why you have coins with any amounts: to be protected from spam. To not flood the network with a lot of transactions, created out of thin air. This is the reason for transaction fees, and this is the reason for coin amounts in the first place. Because if not that, then if test coins are supposed to be worthless, then ask yourself a question: why any coin amounts are introduced at all, and the total supply is not just permanently set to zero?

And of course, there are lots of use cases for coins with zero satoshis. For example: any token creation protocol could potentially use the UTXO set to store that kind of information. And in that case, testnet fits even better than mainnet, because you still cover things with a lot of hashrate, but you don't have to take down regular payments, because this is not the purpose of the network, so no real payments are expected in the first place!

[Learn Bitcoin]

The problem looks to be that people are trading tBTC coins at https://altquick.com/exchange/
About 5usd por 15 tBTC last time I checked.

Also, there looks like to be some kind of airdrop for users who interact with testnet coins. I don't know any of those airdrops.

 do you?

That was too cheap. I bought tBTC from this website and I had to spend a dollar for each tBTC. But I am glad that I have managed to gather some tBTC. I needed some tBTC and I was looking for it. But I couldn't manage to gather more than 0.002 tBTC. Most of the faucets are empty. Also, I have been participating in airdrops lately and I need some tBTC to participate in airdrops as well. Yes, I know about one project that needs tBTC to participate in it. You can check this testnet project if you want. https://testnet.zulunetwork.io/

[bitmover]

Also, there looks like to be some kind of airdrop for users who interact with testnet coins. I don't know any of those airdrops.

Nice. I have 0.006 tBTC.

Do you think is it worth anything in the airdrop you mentioned?