What's the point of mining testnet bitcoins?

[BlackHatCoiner]

Testnet bitcoins have no value, despite the fact that they're too expensive to mine. Since they don't have value and there is no profit from mining, what's the miner's incentive?

miner8VH6WPrsQ1Fxqb7MPgJEoFYX2RCkS right now has 1,654,132 TBTC. If we assume that they have no value, then they don't. But, since people want testnet bitcoins, why don't they have value? I don't get this. Isn't this a free market? Isn't there a demand and a supply for testnet bitcoins?

[jackjack]

There has been attempts in the past to sell them, some people bought and some people made money on coins that can disappear tomorrow
Even though faucets only sends hundredths of a coins, testing a service with 1000 satoshis or 1000000000 satoshis doesn't change anything
But you're right, free market, so yeah people can choose to pay for what they want, they can even send coins to 1111111111111111111114oLvT2

[Husires]

Since they don't have value and there is no profit from mining, what's the miner's incentive?

Demand for something = value. That value does not necessarily mean a monetary reward.
You can create a free bitcoin Testnet site, the value will be in the number of visits to that site.
Some faucets offer these coins for free = the value is watching some ads or clicking on some links.
Some try to sell it and others try to use it to scam.

[vjudeu]

what's the miner's incentive?

The miner's incentive is that you can test something and show your test results to everyone else. That's all.

why don't they have value?

Because testnet creators thought that if coins will be worthless, then everyone could use them without worrying about losing some real funds. If you send all your testnet coins to some burning address, you lose nothing by doing that. No real Bitcoins are taken from your real account, you don't have to pay for it.

Isn't this a free market?

Because free market sometimes makes testnet coins valuable, we have testnet3. It was resetted two times in the past. It can be resetted at any moment. But now, it seems that we have a different approach than resetting current testnet: developers created some better test networks (like regtest or signet) and then it is assumed that testnet will naturally die. Even if testnet will be resetted tomorrow, it is P2P network, it is not that easy to kill some coin if people still want to keep it alive, the same is true for many useless altcoins. That's why testnet should die naturally, just when everyone will switch to some better test networks.

Isn't there a demand and a supply for testnet bitcoins?

Yes, it is, but because everyone knows about this "zero-value policy", nobody use testnet seriously, also because there are better alternatives.

[BrewMaster]

what's the miner's incentive?

The miner's incentive is that you can test something and show your test results to everyone else. That's all.

you test something once and then evaluate the results not continue testing until you accumulate a million coins when the reward is less than 1 TBTC (i think it is currently around 0.01 actually). which means it needs A LOT of mining.
of course there are also miners who are dedicated hashrate to keep the testnet alive. if nobody mines it the network dies.

[vjudeu]

you test something once and then evaluate the results not continue testing until you accumulate a million coins when the reward is less than 1 TBTC (i think it is currently around 0.01 actually). which means it needs A LOT of mining.

Accumulating a lot of test coins is like accumulating a lot of testing potential. You can use it for your testing or send it to anyone else (by setting up some faucet, sending it to any active address, etc., it doesn't matter). If you have many test coins, you can test many things on-chain. If you have less coins, you can always test Lightning Network or something like that and go to some smaller units than one satoshi, dividing it into smaller units as many times as needed. Or you can just choose some other test network where getting bigger amounts is easier than in testnet3.

of course there are also miners who are dedicated hashrate to keep the testnet alive

Yes, testnet also has some usage for GPU and ASIC testing, because it is very similar to mainnet and it can be used also to test if you are correctly connected. You can check if other people can also see your blocks and if they can build on top of them.

if nobody mines it the network dies

As long as it has some use cases and many people don't know about better test networks, it won't die that fast.

[suzanne5223]

Why mine TBTC? The purpose of mining TBTC is to keep the development of new Bitcoin/crypto-related project based alive, if no one mines the TBTC there will be no chance to test every new project created and it may decrease people's confidence in a crypto project.
Having said that, we said TBTC has no value but there are some people outside the forum that know its value and bought it with real BTC. I believe the holder of the 1,654,132 TBTC plan to keep for the future sake when it will be hard for people to get TBTC.

[NotFuzzyWarm]

The point of testnet coins is spelled out in their name...
They are for testing algorithms and mining software operations without endangering the main coin networks and are most often used when folks are coming up with a new shitcoin. Putting a monetary value on them defeats the whole point.

[pooya87]

Having said that, we said TBTC has no value but there are some people outside the forum that know its value and bought it with real BTC. I believe the holder of the 1,654,132 TBTC plan to keep for the future sake when it will be hard for people to get TBTC.

If that happens then the whole network will be reset easily and we move to testnet4 just like before when we moved from testnet2 to 3 because some people started to trade it at that time.
Right now there are some scarce cases of people exchanging tBTC with some shittoken hoping that token gains a value in the future but not serious enough to warrant a change.

[NotATether]

The point of testnet coins is spelled out in their name...
They are for testing algorithms and mining software operations without endangering the main coin networks and are most often used when folks are coming up with a new shitcoin. Putting a monetary value on them defeats the whole point.

There's obviously more uses for testnet coins than shitcoins, you can use them for testing wallet software, sites that accept bitcoin or pay out in it, any API that involves dealing with mainnet coins and so on. I guess that because trading with other worthless tokens is what the majority of people use them for and so few people actually use (or know enough programming to be capable of using) it for real testing, that's how testnet coins became associated with trading.

[ranochigo]

There are still some intrinsic differences with testnet and Bitcoin, they are not replicas of each other; the clients are configured to ignore standardness rules in testnet.

It's important to note that those people who are clever are not exactly mining with the difficulty that you see. Some blocks mined within the testnet actually has a difficulty of 1 instead of the difficulty as specified in the target. The difficulty is reset to 1 after a 20 minutes without any blocks. If you're able to do so, you can possibly mine quite a few testnet coins this way.

[AdolfinWolf]

Faucets who offer them can plaster their site with ads(ense), thus creating some sort of exchange rate. 1000 clicks = x $ / coins claimed = value.

Why mine TBTC? The purpose of mining TBTC is to keep the development of new Bitcoin/crypto-related project based alive, if no one mines the TBTC there will be no chance to test every new project created and it may decrease people's confidence in a crypto project.
Having said that, we said TBTC has no value but there are some people outside the forum that know its value and bought it with real BTC. I believe the holder of the 1,654,132 TBTC plan to keep for the future sake when it will be hard for people to get TBTC.

Sounds retarded. Do you have a source?

[suzanne5223]

Why mine TBTC? The purpose of mining TBTC is to keep the development of new Bitcoin/crypto-related project based alive, if no one mines the TBTC there will be no chance to test every new project created and it may decrease people's confidence in a crypto project.
Having said that, we said TBTC has no value but there are some people outside the forum that know its value and bought it with real BTC. I believe the holder of the 1,654,132 TBTC plan to keep for the future sake when it will be hard for people to get TBTC.

Sounds retarded. Do you have a source?

No, I don't. I said that footing the advantage of tBTC cause if nobody mine it, the developer may not able to test their new project but according to ETFbitcoin post any dev can create his own testnet but if no one mine tBTC what will happen?

[BlackHatCoiner]

Faucets who offer them can plaster their site with ads(ense), thus creating some sort of exchange rate. 1000 clicks = x $ / coins claimed = value.

So they do have a value. If I have 1000 TBTC, I can sell $5 each to a faucet. But mining 1 TBTC costs a lot more than $5, so the question remains. What's the point of mining TBTC?

As for the testnet4 reset, it won't be that easy as it was with testnet2. When was the last reset occured? More than 5 years ago? I don't believe that testnet miners will remain cooperative this time, because after all, they are the ones that keep testnet alive. It's a p2p network, you can't just announce that it's shut down. I don't know what happened in testnet2, but these were earlier years of bitcoin.

[ranochigo]

No, I don't.

Your sentence didn't make any sense and, pardon my assumption but I was also thinking that you were padding your word count. Whoever holds the testnet Bitcoins essentially holds nothing. The only value that it could be approximated to is the cost of mining a tBTC which is relatively negligible. If you're not looking to pay for anything, run regtest. It should suffice most use case.

What's the point of mining TBTC?

There really isn't a point to do so.

As for the testnet4 reset, it won't be that easy as it was with testnet2. When was the last reset occured? More than 5 years ago? I don't believe that testnet miners will remain cooperative this time, because after all, they are the ones that keep testnet alive. It's a p2p network, you can't just announce that it's shut down. I don't know what happened in testnet2, but these were earlier years of bitcoin.

You don't need the miners to cooperate. Testnet is not meant for production scenarios and there is no reason why you should be assuming testnet to be secure in the first place. The difficulty of the new testnet can be as low as they want. If they were to not cooperate, it'll just be another fork which no one uses.

[pooya87]

I don't believe that testnet miners will remain cooperative this time, because after all, they are the ones that keep testnet alive.

If a miner with their ASIC leaves testnet you can solo mine any block with your CPU easily in 20 minutes. So they are not keeping the testnet alive.
Also only those would refuse to leave the testnet with 0.1 tbtc block reward that were trading it, otherwise everyone else would migrate to a network with 50 tbtc block reward!

[BayAreaCoins]

Testnet bitcoins have no value, despite the fact that they're too expensive to mine. Since they don't have value and there is no profit from mining, what's the miner's incentive?

miner8VH6WPrsQ1Fxqb7MPgJEoFYX2RCkS right now has 1,654,132 TBTC. If we assume that they have no value, then they don't. But, since people want testnet bitcoins, why don't they have value? I don't get this. Isn't this a free market? Isn't there a demand and a supply for testnet bitcoins?

I'm going to necro post the fuck out of this thing because I too realized this late in 2022, and decided to let my free market determine if they have value or not.

Thus far, there is always someone in line to buy them on the bid.

https://altquick.com/exchange/market/BitcoinTestnet3

https://altquick.com/exchange/market/BitcoinTestnet4

Also, part of the propaganda of v4 launching was that people "ran out" of v3.  This guy still has a million v3 coins in the OP link!!!!!!!!  My faucet still has plenty of v3 too. Plenty of other Bitcoin contributors have thousands.  *shrugs*. I think it is more likely that the attack someone did on Bitcoin Testnet to purposely dry up the block reward was the main factor in reality... regardless, it seems to have made Testnet 3 even more valuable for some strange reason.

Having a small amount of value will hopefully shake those types of people loose of their coins.  Although there is a miner in v4 with >900,000 TBTC and counting... they are absolutely rekting the 20 min reset rule.  Sadly, having a small value that is easy to get to will also bring a few scammers too... probably mostly faucet owners selling their coins.  Some dude got caught with a giveaway thread here that turned into a "Dump for BTC on BAC's website" lol ops happens.  (that's why I created my own faucet years ago and still today, I got sick of getting robbed by "feel good" fundraising fuck faces.)

Testnet will likely switch to full POW early next year.  This is good for multiple reasons, but being more similar to Mainnet and allowing testnet to test IRL POW will be a good thing for a lot of people/companies.  I expect it will help hashing power on the Mainnet.

Look at the Bitcoin Core mailing list... it's a frequent subject right now, and a few prominent Bitcoin Contributors have proposed some wild stuff (premining testnet with the goal of selling them, and then making a new one.  This proposal came from Greg Maxwell!!!! LuL)

The ideology around Testnet should be that they have a small amount of value or whatever benefits Bitcoin and helps keep Testnet strong.  This keeps the Testnet network aggressive... really aggressive it seems. Which is good, or you'll have broken shit running with no reason to attack it or fix it (like v3 until it was attacked and "fixed").

Testnet should be a warzone.

Most exchanges (all atm besides my dumb ass) are way to scared of Testnet for lots of reasons... you get a LOT of not great exposer to smart people, who then feel like they have the right to fuck you or try.

BayAreaCoins you seem to have the idea that bitcoin developers are a free shitcoin development business for you.  They are not.  Testnet is for testing, v4 was created because v3 got traded for money, v3 got created (and was left intentionally defective) because v2 got traded for money, etc.  If third party usage of testnet gets in the way of the uses its authors created it for, they will continue to just switch to different rules at their own convenience.  You just don't get any say in the subject, it's not up for debate, and you've certainly been well informed of this all along by many people.  For testnet there isn't even a sense that the system was created for the benefit of others, it's not, it's just a test, and it is intended to have no more value than monopoly money.  Of course, you're free to make whatever shitcoins you want including derivatives of the Bitcoin software-- the bitcoin devs are kind enough to give away the software they've written under terms that allow you to do so, something under which they are under absolutely no obligation to do so, and might be wise to reconsider if they're not treated with professionalism and kindness.

Likewise, there was nothing about my suggestion actually "paying devs".  The reason testnet should probably be massively premined is to assure developers always have ready access to coins and to completely undermine the economics of any attempt to invest in it speculatively because that usage has consistently gotten in the way of using it for testing -- in other words to assure that it remains worthless as it is and has always been intended by its creators.  If the idea I suggest works there is never any value, if it fails at least the trouble of switching to the next version might be compensated from the profits of dumping premined coins on the market. Win Win.  Your aggressively negative response is probably the best evidence that the proposal would be effective and that prior proposals would not that anyone could possibly have wanted.  --- not that anyone specifically has the goal of pissing you off, but you've been insistent on creating and driving usage that is at odds with the creators intention for testnet and changes that make it less useful for your purposes make it more useful for the authors purposes.  Bitcoin developers have hosted a lawn party, you built a sand castle on the bank of their wave pool, under a "no sand castles here" sign-- it literally says "test" in the name--, you don't get to throw a fit when they turn the waves on.  

Nothing in Bitcoin ANYTHING should be "left intentionally defective"... that blows my fucking mind tbh.

Greg was literally the 10th person(?) ever to have commit access to the Bitcoin Github and intentionally left something fucked up!  Gawd damn.

At the very least, what I've done with Testnet is an interesting experiment when Bitcoin Core devs may go rogue against you and do a 180 against "free markets".  It's kinda fun tbh.

[stwenhao]

Nothing in Bitcoin ANYTHING should be "left intentionally defective"...

Well, the minimal difficulty rule was put intentionally. And it is defective, because nobody wanted to introduce anything like that on the main network. That's why there are attacks, which can be done on testnet, and cannot be repeated on mainnet.

And you can also read more about the context here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=50223.msg627957#msg627957

[BayAreaCoins]

Nothing in Bitcoin ANYTHING should be "left intentionally defective"...

Well, the minimal difficulty rule was put intentionally. And it is defective, because nobody wanted to introduce anything like that on the main network. That's why there are attacks, which can be done on testnet, and cannot be repeated on mainnet.

And you can also read more about the context here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=50223.msg627957#msg627957

I'm overly formiliar, which is why v4 is scheduled to go full POW in January of 2025.

It'll mimic mainnet better because obviously leaving flaws isn't a good call for building a testnet work that is intended to mimic mainnet.

IMO, a smart call.  I'm fairly impressed with Antoine Poinsot thus far.

Antoine Poinsot
Mar 18, 2025, 4:24:49 PM
to Bitcoin Development Mailing List
Hi,

Testnet4 was rolled out a year ago to address the shortcomings of testnet3. One of those shortcomings was the difficulty reset creating havoc.

• In spite of this a similar rule was adopted for testnet4. [1] As a result, testnet4 is similarly creating havoc. [2]

The goal of testnet is to mimic the Bitcoin mainnet. This is why it is useful to have in addition to a more control testing environment such as Signet.

The given rationale for a difficulty reset was to let developers occasionally mine blocks on their laptop. But you cannot have your cake and eat it too: either the network is permissionless (PoW) or you assign identities and privileges to some (Signet). By trying to do both at the same time testnet4 created a loophole for abuse. As a result it failed on both count: it neither mimics mainnet nor allows developers to mine active blocks on their laptop.

I propose to fix this by removing the difficulty reset rule from testnet4 through a flag day hard fork on 2026-01-01. I picked a date well in the future to minimize disruption. This leaves enough time for a patch to be reviewed, merged, included in the next major Bitcoin Core release, backported to previous releases and adopted by the infrastructure running on testnet4. That should be enough for a test network.

Let me know what you think,
Antoine

If mining is proceeding normally and most blocks are produced in less than 20 minutes, then the rules are exactly the same as the main network.

But mining isn't normal at all, and we knew it wasn't going from v3 to v4, at least a few people knew that.

As stated, the "intentional" or sloppy work and unreasonable expectations I think are coming to an end in Bitcoin Testnet.  Mining isn't normal in Testnet, it isn't normal because it makes wayyyyy more sense to add weird/custom/not bitcoin gamesmanship to the mining than hit it with bruteforce like normal.  This "hurts" next gen miners attempting to test their new stuff because the get inaccurate data due to the network being funky for kind of a stupid reason, that doesn't work anyways.  It definitely hurts others as well, but these next gen miners are the security Bitcoin will rely on.  

If you don't like permissionless POW cryptocurrencies... don't hang around them. <3

Signet sounds like a great option for you!

It is 100% your freedom with what you are involved in.


Again, I point out that your signature Testnet v4 puzzle coins came and went back to a freaking testnet exchange, but you still are up in arms on this subject.

It's a private company (no investors or anything, we paid + did our own work, we aren't puppets, yet ) , we can do what we want... you, satoshi, greg, and everyone else have no say in final private business decisions.  You are welcome to present arguments against freemarkets and why you should attempt to attack them by altering Bitcoin Testnet even further from Bitcoin (and in ways Bitcoin would hopefully never be altered), which is absolutely NOT the point of Testnet... more so than what I am doing.  I'm helping folks, you included.

The market demands it and we fill that demand.  I think that is a similar approach Bitcoin Developers should take as well.  Maybe a way to kill Bitcoin Cash... one can dream! (har har, tbh, I kinda like BCash, but I'm a .com/Bitcoiner type of dude.)

[pooya87]

But what is the solution if the difficulty reset rule is removed and difficulty remains very high but hashrate drops significantly?

After all this "workaround" is introduced to address a problem. Testnet mining cannot be like mainnet mining because miners don't have an incentive to continue mining testnet. So what if someone floods testnet with their ASICs (a high hashrate) to increase the difficulty and then abandons it after the difficulty adjustment increased the difficulty hence increasing the time between blocks?

Unlike what the quoted message above says, the rational for difficulty reset wasn't only to let people mine on their laptops. It was also to prevent the chain from being stuck for very long periods without growing.