Bitcoin mining in testnet

[janusz]

Hi.

I have an assignment to generate bitcoins in testnet.
It must be done in such way that it should be verifiable via services like blockexplorer.com that I got these bitcoins "from nowhere" (what I understand by this - I should mine them).

I have old Desktop:
CPU - i7 920
GPU - Radeon 4850
OS - Linux

My questions:
1. Is it possible to do mining with this hardware?
2. Is there any mining pool on testnet to join?
3. Maybe there is another way without such a tedious work?
4. Is it wortwhile to ask somebody to mine some testnet bitcoins on my behalf?

In summary, I just need a tiny, tiny fraction of bitcoin that would appear as generated by myself.

Just in case, my address: mhDpA2ttenNPJ7svk6TKZHDwLqUch8pjcY

[unholycactus]

I'm not sure you'll be able to mine a block on testnet with a low hashrate.
I'm not sure what the difficulty is nowadays but it would have been hard even a few years ago.

Try using stratum+tcp://testnet.ckpool.org:3333 with your address as username.

[-ck]

Try using stratum+tcp://testnet.ckpool.org:3333 with your address as username.

I took that service down a year ago so don't bother trying that.

[SFR10]

1. Yes you could use that to mine but only for fractions of dust BTCitcoin
2. Apparently there aren't any.
3. You could perhaps try some faucets in which it will send those fractions of BTCitcoin to your wallet in which could be view on available block explorers
4. Not sure can be done like before

Check the following page, could check those faucet links and use those as proof of receiving funds out of nowhere: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Testnet

[RichBC]

As a matter of interest why has testnet been specified as opposed to the main network?

Rich

[janusz]

Try using stratum+tcp://testnet.ckpool.org:3333 with your address as username.

I took that service down a year ago so don't bother trying that.

I've already tried... haha

1. Yes you could use that to mine but only for fractions of dust BTCitcoin
2. Apparently there aren't any.
3. You could perhaps try some faucets in which it will send those fractions of BTCitcoin to your wallet in which could be view on available block explorers
4. Not sure can be done like before

Check the following page, could check those faucet links and use those as proof of receiving funds out of nowhere: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Testnet

Using faucets, you get FROM and TO addresses in transaction log. But it's not what I need. Frankly, I don't even know, how such a transaction (bitcoin reward for mining) looks like. If someone could point me to any...

OK, suppose I want to mine in testnet. What are the appropriate commands for starting cgminer and testnet node?
A couple of days ago I tried CPU mining with: bitcoin-qt -testnet -genproclimit=7 -gen for circa 10h but with no effect...

[janusz]

I've decided to give a try to cpuminer 2.4.3 and in console output I see 8 threads running with hashrate of 1875 khash/s each.
What are my chances in this configuration?
Any comments welcomed.

Thanks.

[ezeminer]

I've decided to give a try to cpuminer 2.4.3 and in console output I see 8 threads running with hashrate of 1875 khash/s each.
What are my chances in this configuration?
Any comments welcomed.

Thanks.

You will almost never mine a block on the main network. Unless you somehow live for a million plus years. Or you could be EXTREMELY lucky.

The network is 936,068,808 GH/s = 936,068,808,000,000 KH/s

Code:

Chances of a Block:     1875 / 936,068,808,000,000 = 0.000000000002% chance
Chances of Winning the Powerball:  1 / 292,201,338 = 0.000000003% chance

If your assignment is mine bitcoins from "nowhere" you should mine with a pool, it is the only way you can generate coins. In a week you'll have the dust amount of 0.00000005, which is five satoshis.

Or find an altcoin that is CPU only to mine crypto from nowhere.

[janusz]

I've decided to give a try to cpuminer 2.4.3 and in console output I see 8 threads running with hashrate of 1875 khash/s each.
What are my chances in this configuration?
Any comments welcomed.

Thanks.

You will almost never mine a block on the main network. Unless you somehow live for a million plus years. Or you could be EXTREMELY lucky.

The network is 936,068,808 GH/s = 936,068,808,000,000 KH/s

Code:

Chances of a Block:     1875 / 936,068,808,000,000 = 0.000000000002% chance
Chances of Winning the Powerball:  1 / 292,201,338 = 0.000000003% chance

If your assignment is mine bitcoins from "nowhere" you should mine with a pool, it is the only way you can generate coins. In a week you'll have the dust amount of 0.00000005, which is five satoshis.

Or find an altcoin that is CPU only to mine crypto from nowhere.

Thanks for feedback - very informative.
But you are referring to MAINNET, right?
This thread is about BITCOIN mining in TESTNET and I would appreciate I you could provide me some info about that (if you posses any):
- chances of block?
- are there any active testnet pools?
- considering the hardware I mentioned in first post, better CPU or GPU for mining?

BTW, my experiment with cpuminer 2.4.3 solo mining failed... Left it for a night and it consumed all the memory, including 4GB swap.

[ezeminer]

I've decided to give a try to cpuminer 2.4.3 and in console output I see 8 threads running with hashrate of 1875 khash/s each.
What are my chances in this configuration?
Any comments welcomed.

Thanks.

You will almost never mine a block on the main network. Unless you somehow live for a million plus years. Or you could be EXTREMELY lucky.

The network is 936,068,808 GH/s = 936,068,808,000,000 KH/s

Code:

Chances of a Block:     1875 / 936,068,808,000,000 = 0.000000000002% chance
Chances of Winning the Powerball:  1 / 292,201,338 = 0.000000003% chance

If your assignment is mine bitcoins from "nowhere" you should mine with a pool, it is the only way you can generate coins. In a week you'll have the dust amount of 0.00000005, which is five satoshis.

Or find an altcoin that is CPU only to mine crypto from nowhere.

Thanks for feedback - very informative.
But you are referring to MAINNET, right?
This thread is about BITCOIN mining in TESTNET and I would appreciate I you could provide me some info about that (if you posses any):
- chances of block?
- are there any active testnet pools?
- considering the hardware I mentioned in first post, better CPU or GPU for mining?

BTW, my experiment with cpuminer 2.4.3 solo mining failed... Left it for a night and it consumed all the memory, including 4GB swap.

Your gpu looks like it would do 120kh/s based on the bitcoin wiki.

Looks like here is some information for the testenet: https://www.biteasy.com/testnet/blocks/000000000000402c3d7403c011b1b72a778fb0a753ebe3e5a9126abdb2f65b86

testnet pools? I have no idea, the only one I knew about was ck's but sounds like it has been shut down for a while.


But, looking at some ancient posts you could try running your own testnet and mine coins

There is no purpose to mining Testnet.  Please don't.

If you need to "Test a mining rig", then use Testnet in a Box (http://sourceforge.net/projects/bitcoin/files/Bitcoin/testnet-in-a-box/).

Testnet-in-a-Box has multiple advantages over the real Testnet:

1)  The difficulty is 1, so you find blocks almost immediately.
2)  It makes sure you don't impact either the Bitcoin network or the actual Testnet
3)  It has all of the same advantages as the real Testnet.

I use Testnet-in-a-Box to actually test my mining pools, so I can verify payouts are working, shares are being handed out, etc.

I don't have to compete against anyone else, so it's perfect for doing my own development.