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From: Nagaev Boris <bnagaev@gmail.com>
Date: Sun, 31 Mar 2024 18:01:51 -0300
Message-ID: <CAFC_Vt7zKvMEfQLzWHQ6t_9bgv1iqt4Ah8N883CuoSfmLUKdMA@mail.gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [bitcoindev] The Future of Bitcoin Testnet
To: Peter Todd <pete@petertodd.org>
Cc: Jameson Lopp <jameson.lopp@gmail.com>, bitcoindev@googlegroups.com
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On Sun, Mar 31, 2024 at 1:25=E2=80=AFPM Peter Todd <pete@petertodd.org> wro=
te:
>
> 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 amus=
ing
> > edge case bug that causes the difficulty to regularly get reset to 1, w=
hich
> > 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 bee=
n
> > broken.
> >
> > This leads me to ponder the following questions, for which I'm soliciti=
ng
> > 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 wo=
uld
> > 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 su=
pply
> issue: get rid of the halving for testnet and just make every block creat=
e new
> coins.

If such a change is made, then such a network won't be suitable to
test halvings and software behaviour related to halvings.

>
> --
> https://petertodd.org 'peter'[:-1]@petertodd.org
>
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--=20
Best regards,
Boris Nagaev

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