Why High Demand for Bitcoin Testnet Coins?

[notblox1]

For years I was helping members with Bitcoin Testnet coins but in last few weeks I noticed a big increase of newbie members asking me for coins.

There is another member with faucet in forum that was abused and emptied, and I started receiving messages from members asking for coins.

This is very suspicious to me, so I ask if there is some bounty campaign or project that is paying money for testnet coins?

[1714496511]

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[1714496511]

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[Mitchell]

It is related to the SatoshiVM airdrop, which uses testnet coins to get SatoshiVM Testnet tokens (announcement tweet).

SatoshiVM has confirmed to do an airdrop to the top 5,000 testnet users. Users can now participate in testing the bridge on the newly launched testnet. The top 5,000 testnet users will receive a SatoshiVM NFT once the alpha-mainnet goes live. These NFT holders will get SAVM airdrops on a weekly basis.

[Bitcoin_Arena]

It is related to the SatoshiVM airdrop, which uses testnet coins to get SatoshiVM Testnet tokens ]

Bitcoin getting attacked from all angles 

First It was the useless inscriptions that led to a sharp increase in Bitcoin transaction fees and now Testnet coins getting drained because there is a reward in form of airdrops?
I guess more is yet to come.

[icopress]

Looks like I'm missing something... I seem to have some t'network coins, but I'm a little confused since my Bitcoin address starts with "m" and not "t".

Can someone explain the difference to me as if I were 5 years old? 

[NotATether]

It is related to the SatoshiVM airdrop, which uses testnet coins to get SatoshiVM Testnet tokens (announcement tweet).

SatoshiVM has confirmed to do an airdrop to the top 5,000 testnet users. Users can now participate in testing the bridge on the newly launched testnet. The top 5,000 testnet users will receive a SatoshiVM NFT once the alpha-mainnet goes live. These NFT holders will get SAVM airdrops on a weekly basis.

In that case, Bitcoin Core devs need to take action and reset the testnet network again.

[FatFork]

Looks like I'm missing something... I seem to have some t'network coins, but I'm a little confused since my Bitcoin address starts with "m" and not "t".

If I'm not mistaken, addresses starting with "m" or "n" are P2PKH (legacy) addresses, and addresses starting with "tb1" are in Bech32 format. Testnet wallets should be able to send to all addresses, regardless of whether the prefix is "m", "n", or "tb1".

[ABCbits]

It is related to the SatoshiVM airdrop, which uses testnet coins to get SatoshiVM Testnet tokens (announcement tweet).

SatoshiVM has confirmed to do an airdrop to the top 5,000 testnet users. Users can now participate in testing the bridge on the newly launched testnet. The top 5,000 testnet users will receive a SatoshiVM NFT once the alpha-mainnet goes live. These NFT holders will get SAVM airdrops on a weekly basis.

It's a shame since SatoshiVM is technically interesting, but the team don't care about harming testnet environment.

In that case, Bitcoin Core devs need to take action and reset the testnet network again.

Or use Signet.

[paid2]

If I'm not mistaken, addresses starting with "m" or "n" are P2PKH (legacy) addresses, and addresses starting with "tb1" are in Bech32 format. Testnet wallets should be able to send to all addresses, regardless of whether the prefix is "m", "n", or "tb1".

I think you're right.

If we look on the Bitcoin Wiki, page List_of_address_prefixes. we find the following line:




This is interesting. I was not aware of the different types of addresses for testnet BTC.

[LoyceV]

This is very suspicious to me

Unfortunately, it's nothing new:

There is a shitty/scammy ethereum ICO thing right now giving people shares in exchange for testnet btc, this is totally screwing up the usability of testnet and also causing antisocial dickwads to waste all our time begging for testnet coins without disclosing that the only thing they want them for is to make a quick buck.

That was 3.5 years ago.

It is related to the SatoshiVM airdrop, which uses testnet coins to get SatoshiVM Testnet tokens

It never ceases to amaze me how creative they are in creating money-grabbing schemes. I've been wondering what would be the next thing, and after altcoins, ICOs, tokens, Forkcoins, DeFi, NFTs and Ordinals, it seems that this is "the next big thing". Lol.

Decentralized Bitcoin ZK Rollup Layer2 that is compatible with the EVM ecosystem and uses native BTC as gas.
SatoshiVM introduces the EVM ecosystem to BTC, granting the Bitcoin ecosystem the capability to issue assets and build applications.

All I see is meaningless buzzwords and abbreviations. The website design reminds me of the ICO time: all flashy websites, all more or less the same, all filled with BS about disrupting whatever industry, and all completely forgotten a few years later. This looks the same: a quick money grabbing scheme for the creator, and a lot of gullible people will lose their money over this.

Compare lightning.network: an informative website, no flashy design, no animations, no buzzwords. It makes me wonder why the money grabbing scams have so much better PR than real projects.

Bitcoin Core devs need to take action and reset the testnet network again.

It's been a while:

The current testnet is on its third iteration, somewhat unimaginatively titled testnet3.
It was put that way by this commit:
    Testnet, Mark III
    gavinandresen authored 2012-04-12
~
Essentially, the devs want testnet coins to be worthless for two reasons:
    to make them easy to mine
    because it's nice to have a place to demonstrate attacks against bitcoin without actually disrupting the network. You can show that an attack is valid without costing people real money.

I wasn't around when the first 2 Testnets ended, but considering it's been almost 12 years, this has been the longest running Testnet ever. And it's not easy to mine without specialized hardware.

[DaveF]

My standard question always is why not use regtest 1st. https://developer.bitcoin.org/examples/testing.html
And then once you have a working application that you can show us then we can discuss giving you testnet coins.
Beyond that, either you probably don't know what you are doing or are looking to scam. Because .1 TBC is more then enough to take care of most testing.

But, where there is money involved, people will want to get some of it for free, so we are stuck dealing with the scams.

-Dave

[SamReomo]

It is related to the SatoshiVM airdrop, which uses testnet coins to get SatoshiVM

Now I got it that why the user was asking for Testnet coins. I thought they might be doing something good but all they want is that airdrop of NFT. I agree that now Bitcoin is getting attacked by those NFTs and Ordinals from all sides.

Those guys have not started attacking testnet coins which have no value at all and are mined for testing purpose only. So, I guess OP will surely get bombarded with many messages and requests because he's offering free testnet coins to users.

[notblox1]

It is related to the SatoshiVM airdrop, which uses testnet coins to get SatoshiVM Testnet tokens

I heard about that one yesterday, and they collected crazy amount of testnet coins so far, but I think there are more projects that are similar.
It seems to me this is going to be the new ground for scam projects in 2024 and 2025.

Can someone explain the difference to me as if I were 5 years old?  

Most 5 year old boys dont know to read and write all letters yet  
It is the same like in normal bitcoin addresses, there are older and newer formats but they all work fine.

Unfortunately, it's nothing new

Smells like a new bullrun and now they have new toys to play with ZK and layer2.

[OgNasty]

I guess more is yet to come.

More is always yet to come and that's how we like it.  Bitcoin is strong because so many people try to break it.  Break all the things is even a motto of some around here.  Break and decentralize everything is my take on it.  Sure, people are doing this for their own financial gain, but that will always be an attack vector that needs to be accounted for and dealt with.  So while this sort of thing targeting the testnet is no doubt a nuisance, it can only strengthen it in the end and that's a great thing.

[Shishir99]

It is related to the SatoshiVM airdrop, which uses testnet coins to get SatoshiVM Testnet tokens (announcement tweet).

I saw their airdrop offer a couple of weeks ago when a YouTube channel named Ilme Aalim posted a video about this airdrop. But, I didn't pay attention because these airdrops never payouts well amount. Most of these airdrops pay less than $10 and the participants need to work hard for these ten bucks! That is not the point. What they would do with these test net tokens? They could have set up a faucet for their users. I don't know what is the supply of testnet tokens and if it has any special usecase.

[LoyceV]

I noticed something else: many Testnet blocks are full! They're close to the maximum "Weight", which means there's a massive number of testnet transactions being created. It's still better than on-chain Ordinal spam on the real Bitcoin blockchain of course.
I also noticed most blocks take slightly over 20 minutes, which is the maximum time on Testnet before the difficulty drops. I think that means barely anyone is mining Testnet with sufficient hashrate anymore.

[NotATether]

I noticed something else: many Testnet blocks are full! They're close to the maximum "Weight", which means there's a massive number of testnet transactions being created. It's still better than on-chain Ordinal spam on the real Bitcoin blockchain of course.
I also noticed most blocks take slightly over 20 minutes, which is the maximum time on Testnet before the difficulty drops. I think that means barely anyone is mining Testnet with sufficient hashrate anymore.

Does anybody even make ASICs for testnet mining? Or can existing ASICs can be tweaked to use testnet's getblocktemplate?

[ABCbits]

I noticed something else: many Testnet blocks are full! They're close to the maximum "Weight", which means there's a massive number of testnet transactions being created. It's still better than on-chain Ordinal spam on the real Bitcoin blockchain of course.

I wonder whether someone finally notice Bitcoin testnet3 remain alive for more than 10 years and makes it suitable to store data "forever".

I also noticed most blocks take slightly over 20 minutes, which is the maximum time on Testnet before the difficulty drops. I think that means barely anyone is mining Testnet with sufficient hashrate anymore.

It's also possible they want to obtain tBTC with minimum effort, by performing mining only when difficulty dropped to 1.

I noticed something else: many Testnet blocks are full! They're close to the maximum "Weight", which means there's a massive number of testnet transactions being created. It's still better than on-chain Ordinal spam on the real Bitcoin blockchain of course.
I also noticed most blocks take slightly over 20 minutes, which is the maximum time on Testnet before the difficulty drops. I think that means barely anyone is mining Testnet with sufficient hashrate anymore.

Does anybody even make ASICs for testnet mining? Or can existing ASICs can be tweaked to use testnet's getblocktemplate?

You can use existing ASIC to mine tBTC. Here's an example, [Guide] Solo mine testnet bitcoins with cgminer, Bitcoin Core, and a Compac F.

[LoyceV]

I wonder whether someone finally notice Bitcoin testnet3 remain alive for more than 10 years and makes it suitable to store data "forever".

Even if testnet3 ends, nothing is stopping the Ordinal spammers from keeping the chain alive. Or, more likely, they'll find a way to charge their users for bridging their BS to another chain.

[notblox1]

I noticed something else: many Testnet blocks are full! They're close to the maximum "Weight", which means there's a massive number of testnet transactions being created. It's still better than on-chain Ordinal spam on the real Bitcoin blockchain of course.
I also noticed most blocks take slightly over 20 minutes, which is the maximum time on Testnet before the difficulty drops. I think that means barely anyone is mining Testnet with sufficient hashrate anymore.

I identified three or four projects that are paying rewards for sending bitcoin testnet coins, but not to everyone, they are making people compete who is going to send more coins
My best guess is that there are more similar projects and for this reason I had to pause my Testnet faucet service, until this thing cools down.
Be ready for new wave of scams coming soon 

Does anybody even make ASICs for testnet mining? Or can existing ASICs can be tweaked to use testnet's getblocktemplate?

It is the same type of miner like for mainnet bitcoin.

[BlackHatCoiner]

If some people want to treat testnet as non-worthless, then so be it. If an idiot wants to trade real, hard cash for, by definition, worthless tokens, then let them do it. There will always be people who treat them as worthless, and who are willing to mine them and give them for free. And in the worst case scenario that they become minimum, we can always restart the chain.