Bitcoin testnet mining

[hZti]

I think if we are at this point again that the tBTC are not easily available anymore we are in need of a reset of the testnet to zero again or a new testnet. This will teach people that without a reason hoard bitcoin or shoot insane amounts of mining power at the testnet to make the life of developers hard.

There's currently a shortage, developers/testers need good amounts of testnet coins.

Why do they need good amounts of testnet coins? I recently tried to get some coins and with 0.5 tBTC I can do basically all I need, even if I would like to have some more. But if I really wanted I could ofc find more tBTC.

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[LoyceV]

Ideally there'd be a market

Ideally, testnet coins can easily be mined in small amounts at low cost.

sell batches of 5,10,20,100,1000 for a fee

Hoarding them like this is what leads to high mining difficulty. Paying for testnet coins means contributing to the problem.

[d3bt3]

Hoarding them like this is what leads to high mining difficulty.

I thought difficulty rises with more miners in the network. Nothing to do with existing coins.
So it's not possible to mine any meaningful amount of coins.
Yet if you need 100+ tBTC I can find them.

[hZti]

Hoarding them like this is what leads to high mining difficulty.

I thought difficulty rises with more miners in the network. Nothing to do with existing coins.

Problem is that people mine testnet coins for no reason, just to hold them. Because of those large number of miners the difficulty goes up constantly. If people only mine when they need coins we would have a lot less difficulty. Also people could give coins back to others after mining. For example they send a transaction with a large fee.

Hoarding them like this is what leads to high mining difficulty.

I thought difficulty rises with more miners in the network. Nothing to do with existing coins.

If people have hard time looking for tBTC, some of them would turn to mining. They could rent SHA-256 hashrate from website such as NiceHash and point it to testnet mining pool.

I don’t know a singe public pool that does testnet mining.

About 5 years, i've seen 2-3 public pool for bitcoin testnet. But looks like there aren't pool which still alive, probably due to low mining reward and relative high hashrate. Closest thing you could get today is self-hosted mining pool software such as CoiniumServ[1] and p2pool[2].

[1] https://github.com/bonesoul/CoiniumServ
[2] https://github.com/jtoomim/p2pool

Thanks I will try that in the future. So far I got all the testate coins I will need through faucets or users here but didn't have the time to actually use them. If I need more I will set up a self-hosted pool or even try to find somebody here that would set up a testnet public pool together with me.

[moderator's note: consecutive posts merged]

[DaveF]

IMO, the issue with testnet is that for 99% of the things you need to do you can do them with regtest coins. https://developer.bitcoin.org/examples/testing.html

If you are just doing testing you do it locally in regtest, and once you are sure whatever you are doing works you get a little bit of 'real testnet' coins and use those before deploying in the 'real world'.

So, if you bork / loose / destroy wallets with regtest no big deal. For some reason a bunch of people are putting a lot of mining power into testnet mining and then there are others who insist on using testnet instead of regtest to do things when it's really not needed.

One again, all IMO.

-Dave

[pooya87]

IMO, the issue with testnet is that for 99% of the things you need to do you can do them with regtest coins.

I think it is the opposite, 99% of the things you need to do can be done on testnet very easily. The problem with regtest is that you have to run bitcoin core and then keep going back and forth between your application and core whereas if for example you want to test a wallet you developed, you can just claim some testnet coins from a faucet into that wallet and spend inside it without needing to download, verify, install, run bitcoin core, read documentation of how to use regtest, mine coins, import them into your wallet, and finally spend those coins to test things through a lot of mocks.

[LoyceV]

IMO, the issue with testnet is that for 99% of the things you need to do you can do them with regtest coins.

I have a different view: having to use regtest is the issue with testnet

For some reason a bunch of people are putting a lot of mining power into testnet mining

Weird fetish indeed.

[d3bt3]

IMO, the issue with testnet is that for 99% of the things you need to do you can do them with regtest coins.

I think it is the opposite, 99% of the things you need to do can be done on testnet very easily.

I can't figure out how testing multi-vendor HW config can even be done without testnet coins.  
Nor multi-party coinjoins.  
And not much else outside of a single machine (LAN).

[DaveF]

IMO, the issue with testnet is that for 99% of the things you need to do you can do them with regtest coins.

I think it is the opposite, 99% of the things you need to do can be done on testnet very easily. The problem with regtest is that you have to run bitcoin core and then keep going back and forth between your application and core whereas if for example you want to test a wallet you developed, you can just claim some testnet coins from a faucet into that wallet and spend inside it without needing to download, verify, install, run bitcoin core, read documentation of how to use regtest, mine coins, import them into your wallet, and finally spend those coins to test things through a lot of mocks.

I was thinking of things that talked to core.

But, beyond that you can with a little bit of time and effort (as in a couple of hours at most) you can get 0.1 tBTC which as others have pointed out is more then enough to do just about anything since it is divisible down. If you need more, it just takes a bit more time and effort. If it's a 'real' project, then that just has to be part of it.
But, I hit all the faucets I could google and wound up with .044 in about 45 minutes while also doing a few other things online. So if you need it it's there.

-Dave
*I will be returning it later today. Since I don't have a need for it.

[GaloisField]

Hello,

As the first message on this post, I need some tBTC for a project. We can buy for some sats but we need something like 3-4 tBTC.

If you know anyone interested feel free to comment here and we can chat about it.


Thanks,

GaloisField

[LoyceV]

I need some tBTC for a project. We can buy for some sats but we need something like 3-4 tBTC.

Why? What can you do with that much that you can't do with 0.01 tBTC?

[ABCbits]

Hello,

As the first message on this post, I need some tBTC for a project. We can buy for some sats but we need something like 3-4 tBTC.

If you know anyone interested feel free to comment here and we can chat about it.


Thanks,

GaloisField

Depending on your need, consider regtest network where you can obtain tons of coins easily[1].

[1] https://developer.bitcoin.org/examples/testing.html#regtest-mode

[d3bt3]

Hello,

As the first message on this post, I need some tBTC for a project. We can buy for some sats but we need something like 3-4 tBTC.

If you know anyone interested feel free to comment here and we can chat about it.


Thanks,

GaloisField

 

This exchange offers hundreds, and you can bring them back when you are done. 
https://altquick.com/exchange/market/BitcoinTestnet