ckpool is breaking Bitcoin Testnet4 — Devs can’t build

[daywednes]

We’re trying to build on Bitcoin Testnet4, but ckpool is making it nearly unusable. They keep mining blocks with either no transactions or only their own, while ignoring all other incoming txs. This defeats the whole point of a testnet — to test real transactions.

Bitcoin development is already slow. Now we have a miner actively making it worse in the only place where devs can safely build and experiment.

You can see it for yourself — the same address has been collecting block rewards for 2 months:
👉 https://mempool.space/testnet4/address/tb1qum986qkqf363jhaau2nlavyehdqg487p8m2ydu

Sure, earning rewards is fine — it’s part of the protocol. But actively censoring other transactions crosses the line. It’s manipulation, and it’s stalling development.

This is incredibly frustrating for the developer community. Either this gets fixed, or we seriously need a new testnet.

[LoyceV]

We’re trying to build on Bitcoin Testnet4

Testnet isn't meant to "build on".

ckpool is making it nearly unusable.

What makes you think it's ckpool that's doing this?

You can see it for yourself — the same address has been collecting block rewards for 2 months:
👉 https://mempool.space/testnet4/address/tb1qum986qkqf363jhaau2nlavyehdqg487p8m2ydu

You may want to read Testnet4 Mining (Discussion) (to start):

The areshole who is abusing testnet4 is better with mining empty blocks to avoid any block being invalidated if any transaction was not right

I would have guessed it's because smaller blocks can be broadcasted faster.

This is incredibly frustrating for the developer community. Either this gets fixed, or we seriously need a new testnet.

I've seen some discussion about how to improve testnet, but all suggestions have drawbacks again.

[mikeywith]

ckpool is making it nearly unusable.

What makes you think it's ckpool that's doing this?

it is because he sees "ck" in the coinbase tag so he assumes it's ckpool the one owned and maintained by ck but the tag is there because people use ckpool's software which is open-source and ready to deploy for most use cases.

[BayAreaCoins]

We’re trying to build on Bitcoin Testnet4, but ckpool is making it nearly unusable. They keep mining blocks with either no transactions or only their own, while ignoring all other incoming txs. This defeats the whole point of a testnet — to test real transactions.

Bitcoin development is already slow. Now we have a miner actively making it worse in the only place where devs can safely build and experiment.

You can see it for yourself — the same address has been collecting block rewards for 2 months:
👉 https://mempool.space/testnet4/address/tb1qum986qkqf363jhaau2nlavyehdqg487p8m2ydu

Sure, earning rewards is fine — it’s part of the protocol. But actively censoring other transactions crosses the line. It’s manipulation, and it’s stalling development.

This is incredibly frustrating for the developer community. Either this gets fixed, or we seriously need a new testnet.

I likely know the miner "tb1qum986qkqf363jhaau2nlavyehdqg487p8m2ydu".  It seems to me from our chats that he is making a statement.  The bullshit that happened in v3 and the sloppy release of v4 isn't unseen and is being protested.  Edit: Yep, this is for sure my acquaintance.  He said "I'm famous!" rofl

They are doing a better job at mining than you... This doesn't defeat the purpose of Testnet, it means that you lack the logic to intelligently mine even in a "worthless" network, and you need to get better.  I pointed 1 PH (for "free" for me) at Testnet the other day through a public pool and strong-armed 6% of the blocks that day, lol... sigh.

Creating a new Testnet isn't going to permit you to do a shitty job and still be rewarded... that is just unrealistic.

PRO TIP:  Mine dif 1, save the solutions, set your laptop to rush to submit at 20 min + 1 second.  Turn the ASICS off and mine smarter, not harder.  

PRO TIP #2:  A lot of those "protest" blocks are leaking back into the community for a heavy discount vs doing the mining labor yourself and are easily available on AltQuicks books.  Follow the blockchain data from the address in the OP and you'll see that they make their way to me.

If you are developing and testing mining, you got room for improvement.  If you are in need of v4 Testnet coins, you can buy those empty blocks for pennies per coin.  If you only need Testnet dust for testing (as the idea pushed by developers that you only need dust to test) then you can use a faucet.

There is no free lunch, you need to earn it or buy it... just like anything else in the world.  Mining Bitcoin Testnet v4 is VERY easy if you have your settings correct.

[ABCbits]

We’re trying to build on Bitcoin Testnet4, but ckpool is making it nearly unusable. They keep mining blocks with either no transactions or only their own, while ignoring all other incoming txs.

Either this gets fixed, or we seriously need a new testnet.

I don't know what you're trying to build. But in case you mean you actually mean you want to test/try something, consider Signet network instead. Looking at the recent blocks[1], there's almost no empty block mined.

Sure, earning rewards is fine — it’s part of the protocol. But actively censoring other transactions crosses the line. It’s manipulation, and it’s stalling development.

I don't like it either. But it's just limitation of Bitcoin protocol, although mining pool on mainnet usually don't do this since it would affect their reputation and they would miss reward from TX fee.

[1] https://mempool.space/signet/mining

[BayAreaCoins]

I don't like it either. But it's just limitation of Bitcoin protocol, although mining pool on mainnet usually don't do this since it would affect their reputation and they would miss reward from TX fee.

It doesn't really matter what you like, it is what it is.  

These guys are doing plenty fine without fees.  

The message is worth 100000x more than any worthless Testnet fee.

(Note:  I'm really the one getting most of the blowback from this miner(s)... Almost 100% of my customer support tickets related to v4 are concerning this.)

I don't know what you're trying to build. But in case you mean you actually mean you want to test/try something, consider Signet network instead. Looking at the recent blocks[1], there's almost no empty block mined.

If a person can't build it in Testnet, then they need to keep working because they are going to get *raped* on Mainnet.


Blocks do make it through, just with an annoying delay.  Y'all can wait.  Have a little faith and wait an hour or two.

Everything in Testnet using a third party takes 12-24 hours of confirmations, anyway.

[pooya87]

We’re trying to build on Bitcoin Testnet4, but ckpool is making it nearly unusable.

I don't know what you mean by "build" but generally speaking one of the problems that led us down this path where test networks have become harder to use is that people have been trying to "build on" this network that was meant to "test" things.
When value is being associated with test coins (tokens created there, shitcoins pegged with tbtc, etc.) you should expect this kind of miners behavior as well.

For almost all cases the simplest solution I've found is using RegTest which can be created locally at block 1 and mined instantly due to its lower difficulty (lower than testnet's min). So if you are actually trying to test something and not "build" like those people, try that out.