Developers are debating resetting testnet.

[NotATether]

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?

I strongly advise against trying to claim any sort of testnet airdrop for ideological reasons. Testnet coins are not supposed to have value (which is why they are so named testnet), but all this talk about trading coins on altquick and airdrops is just going to reinforce the idea to other people that testnet is some kind of crypto that you can earn money with,.

[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?

I strongly advise against trying to claim any sort of testnet airdrop for ideological reasons. Testnet coins are not supposed to have value (which is why they are so named testnet), but all this talk about trading coins on altquick and airdrops is just going to reinforce the idea to other people that testnet is some kind of crypto that you can earn money with,.

I understand your point and I can see there is really a controversy.

However,  this is not simple sell tBTC and get some money back.

If you open the website,  I will have to give tBTC and then i receive an erc20 token which will be used to test thee new smartcontract they are working on.

It is basic getting paid to help testing. Anyway, as I have very little tBTC, I don't know if I will be eligible

[God Of Thunder]

Nice. I have 0.006 tBTC.

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

Actually, it does not depend on how much BTC you have. We all know that no matter how many tBTCs we have, they still have no value. The website is offering some airdrop points to test its website features, such as bridging, swapping, checking in, and other tasks. If you do a thousand-sat bridge, you get 300 points. If you swap a thousand tBTC bridge, you still get 300 points. So, it does not depend on how much you have. But it depends on your activity. If you do three bridges every day, you will get 900 points, which will later convert into their native token. You should note that bridging tBTC to their token is not the only way to participate. It is one of the tasks.

[dkbit98]

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.

This is stupid and nobody should purchase something that is worthless and have no monetary value by definition.
I remember owner of this crappy exchange from bitcointalk forum, because of people like him we need to have bitcoin testnet reset more often, and they release new versions.
Recently they released Bitcoin Testnet4:
https://mempool.space/testnet4

[NotATether]

Major update to this case as a BIP (Bitcoin Improvement Proposal) has formally been submitted to the mailing list and the bips Github repository.

https://groups.google.com/g/bitcoindev/c/0BYW_diKiVw
https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/pull/1601

The main changes are that there are going to be patches for the Block Storm attack and the Time Warp attack. The Block Storm attack lets people mine a ton of blocks with difficulty 1. It uses the Time Warp attack in conjunction, in order to set the time of successive (instantaneously) mined blocks a little bit into the future.

These changes should mean that there should be plenty of testnet to go around for everyone.

[ABCbits]

Major update to this case as a BIP (Bitcoin Improvement Proposal) has formally been submitted to the mailing list and the bips Github repository.
--snip--

While it's good to see some progress, personally i think it's a shame they're not considering changing coin supply/mining reward. It'll make some dubious people use ASIC to mine when the reward is still high, with goal selling it or spam testnet4 at big scale in the future.

[NotATether]

While it's good to see some progress, personally i think it's a shame they're not considering changing coin supply/mining reward. It'll make some dubious people use ASIC to mine when the reward is still high, with goal selling it or spam testnet4 at big scale in the future.

It's going to be much harder to spam the testnet with new blocks this time, as it becomes significantly harder to mine any blocks when the difficulty minimization quirk is shut off.

Now you would need an ASIC to spam blocks, which most people do not have, but at least casuals will not be able to abuse testnet anymore.

[ABCbits]

While it's good to see some progress, personally i think it's a shame they're not considering changing coin supply/mining reward. It'll make some dubious people use ASIC to mine when the reward is still high, with goal selling it or spam testnet4 at big scale in the future.

It's going to be much harder to spam the testnet with new blocks this time, as it becomes significantly harder to mine any blocks when the difficulty minimization quirk is shut off.

Now you would need an ASIC to spam blocks, which most people do not have, but at least casuals will not be able to abuse testnet anymore.

I've read the BIP which state that. But a block which give 50 tBTC still sound attractive to abuser, where they might bother rent some hashrate from NiceHash or similar place. Although the cost quickly become expensive if multiple abuser have same idea. But we'll see whether it's enough to make testnet4 generally usable.

[garlonicon]

Now you would need an ASIC to spam blocks, which most people do not have, but at least casuals will not be able to abuse testnet anymore.

1. You can mine blocks on your CPU. I did it, and it works. Of course, you would mine more blocks, if you modify Bitcoin Core, to always put the time of the block, which is 20 minutes after the last block.
2. Mempools are becoming empty. Which means, that either testnet3 will die, and will be replaced by testnet4, or some users will submit more transactions with more fees soon.
3. I am not the only CPU miner in testnet. I saw some of them having much more coins than me. For example, in testnet4, wiz has hundreds of thousands of tBTC, see: tb1q548z58kqvwyjqwy8vc2ntmg33d7s2wyfv7ukq4.

By the way, testnet3 is becoming more and more useful for testing. The basic block reward is low, and should be low. Miners should get their rewards from fees. For now, testnet3 is the only test network, where you can get more coins from transaction fees, than out of thin air.

Also, bringing back CPUs does not mean, that the network is open for arbitrary attacks. It is still very profitable to mine your blocks around some ASIC blocks. First, because they bring back the real time, instead of some future time, two hours forward. And second, because their chainwork is stronger, so they can confirm, that your CPU-mined blocks are correct, and won't be reorged that easily. It is a nice feature, that CPUs and ASICs can co-exist in that kind of test network, and it is good to preserve that feature.

But a block which give 50 tBTC still sound attractive to abuser, where they might bother rent some hashrate from NiceHash or similar place.

Why would you need NiceHash, when you can use your CPU, and mine blocks from the future? Usually, testnet3 is filled up with future blocks, but so far, testnet4 has the right time. And even if two-hour-window is fully filled, then you can just make it 20-hour-window, if you want, and then your blocks will be later broadcasted, when clocks in other nodes will get there.

Although the cost quickly become expensive if multiple abuser have same idea.

For that reason, I think we could built a better testnet, based on weak blocks from the mainnet, which would be constantly reorged. Then, if you mine something, which is guaranteed to be resetted, it will always have zero value, and nobody would buy some coins, which could disappear after 10 minutes.

[Manna]

Nice. I have 0.006 tBTC.

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

Actually, it does not depend on how much BTC you have. We all know that no matter how many tBTCs we have, they still have no value. The website is offering some airdrop points to test its website features, such as bridging, swapping, checking in, and other tasks. If you do a thousand-sat bridge, you get 300 points. If you swap a thousand tBTC bridge, you still get 300 points. So, it does not depend on how much you have. But it depends on your activity. If you do three bridges every day, you will get 900 points, which will later convert into their native token. You should note that bridging tBTC to their token is not the only way to participate. It is one of the tasks.

As per your explanation, it is an airdrop or reward scheme where the main objective is to earn points based on the features and attributes of the website.  Here points are earned based on your activity and participation, not the amount of tokens.
 If you complete certain activities such as bridging or swapping, you will receive points, which can then be converted into their native tokens.  It makes your participation and activity more important than the amount of tokens.
 Such schemes are usually used to promote new platforms or projects, and are designed to increase user performance and participation.  Be aware that it is important to verify the legitimacy and security of any airdrop or scheme before participating.

[God Of Thunder]

As per your explanation, it is an airdrop or reward scheme where the main objective is to earn points based on the features and attributes of the website.  Here points are earned based on your activity and participation, not the amount of tokens.
 If you complete certain activities such as bridging or swapping, you will receive points, which can then be converted into their native tokens.  It makes your participation and activity more important than the amount of tokens.

You got it right. Unfortunately, the number of legit airdrops is too low at this moment. There are a lot of new projects that promise good airdrops if users use their systems. However, a very low amount of platforms end up paying the participants. Take Telegram mini apps for example. The number of Telegram mini-apps is impressive. After the success of Notcoin, hundreds of new tap bots appeared on the market and unfortunately, none of them were listed on any exchanges. Only DOGS promised to be listed on exchanges on 20th August. Probably this will be the latest legit telegram mini-apps. The rest of them are just scams.