START mining the testnet

[coinvader]

trying to help some of you miners that are going to struggle. The testnet should get an influx of former main net miners. I'm looking to add testnet for trade
on an exchange for GLDN which is nothing to you but it is unique and could help the adoption of crypto. GLDN/tBTC will be the trading pair on cratex.io hopefully im working on it in the next couple weeks. They should do that or find an altcoin like mintme.me which looks like an excellent choice may give you great returns.

[1714568507]

1714568507

[1714568507]

1714568507

[coinvader]

Will pay miners for testnet coins looking to get 10000 atleast.

[mikeywith]

Will pay miners for testnet coins looking to get 10000 atleast.

Most miners nowadays use ASIC miners to mine bitcoin, inviting to mine on testnet would simply rekt it and render it useless for research and development, current testnet diff is about 90M, mainnet is at 85T, that's 85,000,000MH, moving just 1% from mainnet to testnet will destroy it for as long as that large hashrate is sitting there on the testnet, the current hashrate for testnet is roughly

((1) * 97000000 * 2^32 )/600/1000000000000 = 347TH, and diff does drop to 1 very often when blocks aren't found for 20 mins, so it's pretty usable for the average Joe, if you point a few latest-gen gears there, you make it impossible for the rest to use it, so leave it the fuck alone.

[MaxSoocha]

Mining on testnet is already a losers game. The reward is too low, and you need an ASIC if you don't want to wait for the 20 minute difficulty reset to 1. And even then if you get lucky you only are rewarded 0.012tBTC plus fees.

You'll spend more than 4 days with an S19 to mine a single tBTC not to mention the energy cost at 3,250 watts.  It's MUCH cheaper to buy testnet coins. Testnet coins would have to be worth around $30/40 per coin to make mining on testnet worth the energy and hardware costs.

Here's a bitcoin testnet mining calculator: https://buytestnet.com/bitcoin-testnet-mining-calculator.php

[coinvader]

Mining on testnet is already a losers game. The reward is too low, and you need an ASIC if you don't want to wait for the 20 minute difficulty reset to 1. And even then if you get lucky you only are rewarded 0.012tBTC plus fees.

You'll spend more than 4 days with an S19 to mine a single tBTC not to mention the energy cost at 3,250 watts.  It's MUCH cheaper to buy testnet coins. Testnet coins would have to be worth around $30/40 per coin to make mining on testnet worth the energy and hardware costs.

Here's a bitcoin testnet mining calculator: https://buytestnet.com/bitcoin-testnet-mining-calculator.php

I see the reward is very low but I think the testnet coins should be worth  at least 1% of the mainnet price

[NotFuzzyWarm]

...<Heresy from a troll>  

Most miners nowadays use ASIC miners to mine bitcoin, inviting to mine on testnet would simply rekt it and render it useless for research and development, current testnet diff is about 90M, mainnet is at 85T, that's 85,000,000MH, moving just 1% from mainnet to testnet will destroy it for as long as that large hashrate is sitting there on the testnet, the current hashrate for testnet is roughly

((1) * 97000000 * 2^32 )/600/1000000000000 = 347TH, and diff does drop to 1 very often when blocks aren't found for 20 mins, so it's pretty usable for the average Joe, if you point a few latest-gen gears there, you make it impossible for the rest to use it, so leave it the fuck alone.

My take on it is that the OP is a complete asswipe who does want to make the testnet unusable. Testnet is intended to be a fast, low hardware resource, way to test Bitcoin software and hardware without endangering the mainnet or spending any real money. When testing is finished it is expected that the tBTC used is returned to the source so others can use it for testing.

Lets face it - the OP wants to buy tBTC by paying for it with a scamcoin. They want to make it unusable by encouraging folks to point modern high hashrate miners at it to mine & hold/sell tBTC. Not the actions of a BTC supporter but rather ones of a troll and vehement anti-BTC jerk.

[coinvader]

a bitcoin testnet website

https://bitcointestnet.org

[LoyceV]

you need an ASIC if you don't want to wait for the 20 minute difficulty reset to 1.

I tried it for about a week, and never hit a block. CPU mining loses from ASIC even if the difficulty is reset to 1.

[ABCbits]

I see the reward is very low but I think the testnet coins should be worth  at least 1% of the mainnet price

But even BCH and other forked coin doesn't even have 1% of BTC price.

you need an ASIC if you don't want to wait for the 20 minute difficulty reset to 1.

I tried it for about a week, and never hit a block. CPU mining loses from ASIC even if the difficulty is reset to 1.

Even at difficulty 1, using ASIC would allow you to find block in far shorter duration. Using simple formula[1], i found that using CPU is nearly impossible.

Core i7 3930k (6 core) at 66.6 MH/s[1].

Code:

average time to find a block = 1 * 2**32 / 66600000 = 64 second

GekkoScience Compac F at 200 GH/s.

Code:

average time to find a block = 1 * 2**32 / 200000000000 = 0.021 second

You'll need far faster hardware (e.g. high end GPU) to close the average time gap and hope you're faster during block propagation.

[1] https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1682.msg63066#msg63066
[2] https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Non-specialized_hardware_comparison

[LoyceV]

I see the reward is very low but I think the testnet coins should be worth  at least 1% of the mainnet price

But even BCH and other forked coin doesn't even have 1% of BTC price.

It's like saying I think my made-up Bitcoin Loyce Vision should have 1% of Bitcoin's price. It means nothing.

[NotFuzzyWarm]

I see the reward is very low but I think the testnet coins should be worth  at least 1% of the mainnet price

And I think I should be able to fly, fart rainbows and spit diamonds. Don't see that happening either.

There is no reason for tBTC to have any value at all. It's available for FREE from faucets. Yes they usually have a low & slow payout but so what? Ones does not need whole coins to test with. Just as with BTC, small fractions of a tBTC are processed and work the same as whole coins.

[MaxSoocha]

There is no reason for tBTC to have any value at all. It's available for FREE from faucets. Yes they usually have a low & slow payout but so what? Ones does not need whole coins to test with. Just as with BTC, small fractions of a tBTC are processed and work the same as whole coins.

It's not SUPPOSED to have value, that is true, but it's still a functioning PoW chain which means you need electricity, hardware and money to mine. If it had NO value then faucets would give away 100 coins for free, but they don't because it costs money to mine, and it's not easy to obtain large amounts when you need a modern ASIC to mine testnet.

I ran a BTC faucet from 2014-15, giving away free bitcoin in exchange for ad revenue. That didn't mean bitcoin had no value and that's the same trade testnet faucets are making today.

The low payout of faucets is a problem. Saying you don't need larger amounts for testing is a myth repeated by many. Bitcointalk runs on PHP and MySQL and a large portion of the web still does. MySQL's max integer limit is 2,147,483,647, and it's best practice to store bitcoin amounts in satoshis, not floats. Therefore you need at least 21.48 tBTC to test your database and all aspects of your site and/or connected apps can handle integers larger than 32 bits.  Is a deposit larger than 21.47 BTC likely? Probably not on most sites, but it's not impossible, and that's the last order you want to screw up when you switch your site to mainnet because you didn't test your site properly.

Devs aren't the only ones needing larger amounts, so do bitcoin companies. When exchanges and bitcoin companies do technical tests for their new hires, they use tBTC and they don't use 0.0012 faucet amounts, they use full coins. I can speak from personal experience.  

Instead of shaming people with false narratives some devs like Jameson Lopp understand the need for larger amounts and will gift larger sums to other devs, but he doesn't have an endless amount to give away. Not everyone is generous as Jameson and larger sums are now being loaned and/or sold by others so users can get the amount they want/need.

[coinvader]

There is no reason for tBTC to have any value at all. It's available for FREE from faucets. Yes they usually have a low & slow payout but so what? Ones does not need whole coins to test with. Just as with BTC, small fractions of a tBTC are processed and work the same as whole coins.

It's not SUPPOSED to have value, that is true, but it's still a functioning PoW chain which means you need electricity, hardware and money to mine. If it had NO value then faucets would give away 100 coins for free, but they don't because it costs money to mine, and it's not easy to obtain large amounts when you need a modern ASIC to mine testnet.

I ran a BTC faucet from 2014-15, giving away free bitcoin in exchange for ad revenue. That didn't mean bitcoin had no value and that's the same trade testnet faucets are making today.

The low payout of faucets is a problem. Saying you don't need larger amounts for testing is a myth repeated by many. Bitcointalk runs on PHP and MySQL and a large portion of the web still does. MySQL's max integer limit is 2,147,483,647, and it's best practice to store bitcoin amounts in satoshis, not floats. Therefore you need at least 21.48 tBTC to test your database and all aspects of your site and/or connected apps can handle integers larger than 32 bits.  Is a deposit larger than 21.47 BTC likely? Probably not on most sites, but it's not impossible, and that's the last order you want to screw up when you switch your site to mainnet because you didn't test your site properly.

Devs aren't the only ones needing larger amounts, so do bitcoin companies. When exchanges and bitcoin companies do technical tests for their new hires, they use tBTC and they don't use 0.0012 faucet amounts, they use full coins. I can speak from personal experience.  

Instead of shaming people with false narratives some devs like Jameson Lopp understand the need for larger amounts and will gift larger sums to other devs, but he doesn't have an endless amount to give away. Not everyone is generous as Jameson and larger sums are now being loaned and/or sold by others so users can get the amount they want/need.

That's a great point and I'm trying to figure out some other use cases for tBTC.


I say the testnet is more silver to Bitcoin gold instead of Litecoin. If not its atleast Copper

[ABCbits]

The low payout of faucets is a problem. Saying you don't need larger amounts for testing is a myth repeated by many. Bitcointalk runs on PHP and MySQL and a large portion of the web still does. MySQL's max integer limit is 2,147,483,647, and it's best practice to store bitcoin amounts in satoshis, not floats. Therefore you need at least 21.48 tBTC to test your database and all aspects of your site and/or connected apps can handle integers larger than 32 bits.  Is a deposit larger than 21.47 BTC likely? Probably not on most sites, but it's not impossible, and that's the last order you want to screw up when you switch your site to mainnet because you didn't test your site properly.

But if someone intend to test that far, IMO they better off using regtest where they can generate tons of blocks (and earn tons of regtest Bitcoin) almost instantly. Or use integer 64-bit in the first place at cost of higher memory/storage usage.

[coinvader]

Another option for developers is to just fork Bitcoin and create your own chain so then you could test it all you want without worrying. CASE CLOSED!!! LET the testnet live. People just dont want anybody to have Bitcoin thats what Satoshi wanted. Less than 1% of the wallets hold most of Bitcoin. The testnets worse i gotta say and those coins need to allocated. But atleast it would give people a chance to get whole coins. instead of just satoshis. If the testnet is a problem to the mainnet then the mainnet is insecure.

[mikeywith]

It's not SUPPOSED to have value, that is true, but it's still a functioning PoW chain which means you need electricity, hardware and money to mine. If it had NO value then faucets would give away 100 coins for free, but they don't because it costs money to mine, and it's not easy to obtain large amounts when you need a modern ASIC to mine testnet.

I have to disagree, the only reason why faucets are not giving away 100 coins for free is the fact that getting tBTC became difficult and costly, and why is this the case? it's because of greedy people hitting the testnet with ASICs, so pointing people to hammer the testnet with more ASICs isn't going to solve the problem, it will only make it worse.

It should cost less to mine testnet coins than to watch a movie , speaking both bandwidth and electricity, so saying that it needs "electricity, hardware, and money to mine" is technically correct but put in context is just wrong, you may not be intentionally doing it, but comments like that give the illusion that tBTC must have some inherent monetary value to make worth more than it was intended to be.

Also, there is a technical issue with testnet due to PowAllowMinDifficultyBlocks whereby it takes the last block's difficulty and assumes it was the average difficulty for the entire epoch which then sets the entire new epoch to difficulty of 1 if the last block of any given epoch is 1, or if some asshole miner sets the last block timestamp 20 mins into the future.

When ASIC miners are hammering the testnet while its diff is 1, thousands of blocks will be found in a second, this causes blockchain reorg, a very resource-consuming process, you can imagine the resources it takes to reorg millions of blocks and then get hammered again with another blockchain reorg while in the middle of the first one, nearly every node that uses memory for that purpose will freeze and go out of service, this happens with more than 10% of all epochs, all due to the fact the greedy people are using large ASIC gears on testnet.


I understand that some honest and good devs just want a few tBTC to test their shit, but two wrongs don't make a right, it's like saying "If I don't do it - someone else would", it's fine if you want to be another asshole in the Bitcoinverse, but don't use it as an excuse to do the wrong stuff.

Even if you desperately needed those coins, as a dev, you could be aware of the "dirty" ways you can obtain them in secret, it's still a lot less harmful than going public asking miners to rekt testnet so you can test whatever software you are working on.

Furthermore, for the vast majority of tests, you can use regtest or even better, use Signet.