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From: Karl-Johan Alm <karljohan-alm@garage.co.jp>
Date: Thu, 14 Mar 2019 10:17:31 +0900
Message-ID: <CALJw2w51z+aLTx+nUpNaj20aqsga0kZNA5QcZqB-D9bkTKY6Zw@mail.gmail.com>
To: Varunram Ganesh <varunramganesh@gmail.com>
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Cc: Bitcoin Protocol Discussion <bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org>
Subject: Re: [bitcoin-dev] Signet
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Hi Varunram,

On Wed, Mar 13, 2019 at 3:41 PM Varunram Ganesh
<varunramganesh@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I like your idea of a signet as it would greatly help test reorgs and stu=
ff without having to experiment with regtest. But I'm a bit concerned about=
 running a common signet (Signet1) controlled by a trusted entity. I guess =
if someone wants to test signet on a global scale, they could spin up a cou=
ple nodes in a couple places (and since it is anyway trusted, they can choo=
se to run it on centralised services like AWS). Another concern is that the=
 maintainer might have unscheduled work, emergencies, etc and that could af=
fect how people test stuff on. This would also mean that we need people to =
run signet1 nodes in parallel with current testnet nodes (one could argue t=
hat Signet is trusted anyway and this doesn't matter, still)
>
> I'm sure you would have considered these while designing, so would be gre=
at to hear your thoughts.

For starters, I assume that the signer would run an automated script
that generated blocks on regular intervals without requiring manual
interaction. So even if the signer went on a vacation, the network
would keep on ticking. I also assume the signer would be running a
faucet service so users could get coins as needed. Ultimately though,
if a signer ended up vanishing or being unreliable, people would just
set up a new signet with a different signer and use that instead, so
ultimately it's not a big deal.