Will you be mining Bitcoin Testnet 5 when it is released?

[BayAreaCoins]

Bitcoin Testnet 5 is potentially being released with several new changes to make it more like the Mainnet. This will allow future mining tech and other protocols to have a more realistic field to practice in.

Testnet 5 will no longer include the 20-minute difficulty reset rule. This means that if a large miner drops off the network, things could become "stuck," so consistent mining will be needed to ensure the network keeps moving. Roughly 90% of Testnet 4 blocks were mined by abusing this difficulty reset rule.

Testnet 5 will allow miners, both solo and pool, to have fair access to contributing power and to be rewarded with Testnet block rewards + transactions.

Testnet traditionally has not been traded, but it is fairly well-known by now that my exchange, AltQuick, has supported Bitcoin/Testnet markets since 2022. (I argue this is a good thing; having a business plan that meets free-market demands and fills the faucets is a positive.)

Will you mine Bitcoin Testnet? If so, is it because there is a market, or because you want to contribute to a working network? Does Testnet having a market really make that much of a difference to miners?

[stwenhao]

Will you be mining Bitcoin Testnet 5 when it is released?

Probably not, because ASICs would be needed for that, and I don't have that much mining power. The starting difficulty was recently changed from 0x1d00ffff into 0x1a0fffff, which means, that CPUs won't have much chances there, because it is the difficulty around 1,000,000, which is too high for any CPUs. Fortunately, there are ways to lock coins on arbitrary difficulty inside scripts, so it can be used to test mining instead, and for development, not that much computing power is needed anyway.

or because you want to contribute to a working network?

There is a working network called regtest, where nobody would dare to list on any exchange, because it is designed to be run locally, and it is too unstable to be run publicly, without additional protections. And Proof of Work scripts work there as well, as they do on mainnet, so it is sufficient to test new solutions in that way.

Does Testnet having a market really make that much of a difference to miners?

Most altcoins are created mainly because people cannot mine BTCs directly. If not that, then there would be much less altcoins, than we can see now.

It makes a difference for developers, willing to test their code, not miners. People engaged in mining are usually happy, that they can sell new coins for BTCs.

[Somegory]

Will you mine Bitcoin Testnet? If so, is it because there is a market, or because you want to contribute to a working network? Does Testnet having a market really make that much of a difference to miners?

For real, I don't see how mining Bitcoin faucet will help me, I am a miner myself but I don't just see any reasons why I will want to do this, when I started to set up a miner on my first experience I sat on a chair for few hours and I got it all, thanks to few videos online too.

There is no reward to be made if anyone mines Testnets coins, and same power will still be used, for what reasons? If anyone wants to do some experiments to gain some experience they can do the real bitcoin pool Mining, it's going to be more clearer.

The fact about Testnets is they don't have value, they don't have market and that makes them worthless for my precious time, sorry this is just me, someone out here might have other usefulness for testenet and it's why I will keep an eye on this thread.

[ertil]

There is no reward to be made if anyone mines Testnets coins

There was no reward. But now, all testnets are listed on AltQuick, except regtest, which is usually run only locally.

The fact about Testnets is they don't have value

They had no value. Now they have, and since then, they became altcoins, and some people moved their testing elsewhere.

https://altquick.com/exchange/market/BitcoinSignet
https://altquick.com/exchange/market/BitcoinTestnet3
https://altquick.com/exchange/market/BitcoinTestnet4

If testnet5 will be also listed, then it will become just yet another altcoin.

[BlackHatCoiner]

I'm definitely selling all my testnet5 for testnet4, to support my soft fork, lol!

In all seriousness, it might be better to have another test network which is completely fixed from the beginning instead of messing with soft forks on testnet4. I could not find any decision makers from Foundry and MARA, by the way. From reaching out those, alone, it is easier to just set up a new network.

[ABCbits]

If so, is it because there is a market, or because you want to contribute to a working network?

It could be because someone want to get a bit of mining experience or they need some tBTC and happen to have old/small ASIC lying around.

or because you want to contribute to a working network?

There is a working network called regtest, where nobody would dare to list on any exchange, because it is designed to be run locally, and it is too unstable to be run publicly, without additional protections. And Proof of Work scripts work there as well, as they do on mainnet, so it is sufficient to test new solutions in that way.

And if they want to run their own test network publicly, they have option to run custom/their own signet.

[BayAreaCoins]

I'm definitely selling all my testnet5 for testnet4, to support my soft fork, lol!

I got a really good laugh out of this... It's literally unbelievable how often this happens.  

This is most definitely a thing.  Mostly for Testnet 3 thus far. (almost .05 BTC traded this week in v3... it's beyond me.)

[HeatBit]

I'm definitely selling all my testnet5 for testnet4, to support my soft fork, lol!

In all seriousness, it might be better to have another test network which is completely fixed from the beginning instead of messing with soft forks on testnet4. I could not find any decision makers from Foundry and MARA, by the way. From reaching out those, alone, it is easier to just set up a new network.

Sorry I have no knowledge about Bitcoin testnets but what good is the use of Bitcoin testnets that you are able to sell them? On what exchange and why? If you can sell it means that someone is buying, I will like to know why though.

Maybe there is a use for Bitcoin testnets after all that I don't know about?

[ertil]

what good is the use of Bitcoin testnets that you are able to sell them?

Many people launch their projects on top of testnets. And then, people buy testnet coins, to get some other altcoins.

On what exchange

I already shared the links, and the owner of that exchange is also talking in this topic. What else do you need to know?

and why?

Because some people value Bitcoin Core as a brand. And because altcoins are so bad, that Bitcoin testnets are traded for more coins, than some other altcoins. Which is very bullish for BTC, if making a new chain, without changing its rules that much, is more successful, than making a completely different altcoin.

It is funny, that altcoin creators want to make coins as successful as Bitcoin, and want their price to go up, while Bitcoin developers have the most successful coin, and they want for testnets to be worth exactly zero, but they constantly fail at making it.

I'm definitely selling all my testnet5 for testnet4, to support my soft fork, lol!

Well, people are trying to make testnets worth zero. So far, testnet3 is worth more than testnet4. If testnet5 will be worth even less, then it wouldn't surprise me at all.

[FP91G]

Why did BitcoinTestnet3 exist? Because some savvy entrepreneur started selling testnet2 tokens.

Let's leave test tokens for developers to test new projects. Such coins should have a minimal price so as not to discourage programmers from developing new projects.

[gmaxwell]

Will you be mining Bitcoin Testnet 5 when it is released?

Probably not, because ASICs would be needed for that, and I don't have that much mining power. The starting difficulty was recently changed from 0x1d00ffff into 0x1a0fffff, which means, that CPUs won't have much chances there, because it is the difficulty around 1,000,000, which is too high for any CPUs. Fortunately, there are ways to lock coins on arbitrary difficulty inside scripts, so it can be used to test mining instead, and for development, not that much computing power is needed anyway.

You can get small miners with a couple TH/s for very cheap--  anyone of your level of technical competence should have at least that.  If not to mine testnet you could play the solomine lottery.     mining support in the node software is in a sad state because of too much time with not enough of the technical community and almost no developers mining.  That should change.

If there nanoscale mining among node operators were more common it would also open up some useful options for improved sybil resistance and anti-DOS, as we could use proof of work as yet another criteria for getting access to limited node resources.

[Outhue]

Will you mine Bitcoin Testnet? If so, is it because there is a market, or because you want to contribute to a working network? Does Testnet having a market really make that much of a difference to miners?

For real, I don't see how mining Bitcoin faucet will help me, I am a miner myself but I don't just see any reasons why I will want to do this, when I started to set up a miner on my first experience I sat on a chair for few hours and I got it all, thanks to few videos online too.

There is no reward to be made if anyone mines Testnets coins, and same power will still be used, for what reasons? If anyone wants to do some experiments to gain some experience they can do the real bitcoin pool Mining, it's going to be more clearer.

The fact about Testnets is they don't have value, they don't have market and that makes them worthless for my precious time, sorry this is just me, someone out here might have other usefulness for testenet and it's why I will keep an eye on this thread.

Testnets are useless for people who aren't tech savvy or have anything to do with Blockchain development projects, but trust me it's more useful than you can imagine, if there is a new project that you want to develop you can run other projects testnets just to have some clue or something that can help in your own project, testnets is the name and it already has it's meaning which is testing how a Blockchain performs before moving to main mainnet, there are many projects that are in developing stages that only released testnet and release it for testers to check it out,  they are doing so gearing up for the mainnet release.

[ABCbits]

what good is the use of Bitcoin testnets that you are able to sell them?

Many people launch their projects on top of testnets. And then, people buy testnet coins, to get some other altcoins.

It reminds me how some project have task/bounty that give people their (probably worthless) coin/token in exchange for testnet coin few years ago. Who knows whether people behind the project sell it, use it to scam people (by confuse them between mainnet and testnet coin) or something else.

[stwenhao]

You can get small miners with a couple TH/s for very cheap--  anyone of your level of technical competence should have at least that.

If that would be the case, then signet would have at least a few TH/s. However, it is mined on CPUs instead, and there are no plans to change it. Also, other networks like Lightning Network are not mined either: mining is not for everyone, and never would be. If buying some coins directly is more profitable, than mining them, then a lot of users and developers won't have any miners beyond CPUs at all. Also, signet design shows it quite clearly, because if developers would want to see any ASICs on signet, then signing a new block template after checking every 2^32 hashes wouldn't be needed, and signed messages would be much more flexible than that.

If not to mine testnet you could play the solomine lottery.

I think both is good, but it would take some time and effort, to set it up properly:

For that reason, I thought about something different: what about using Merged Mining to produce testnet chain?

I guess it could be beneficial for many reasons, for example to see, if some non-standard transaction is consensus valid, and accepted by other nodes, or not.

mining support in the node software is in a sad state because of too much time with not enough of the technical community and almost no developers mining.  That should change.

It wouldn't change, if people would keep rejecting Merged Mining as a bad idea. Most solo miners will never get a block in their lifetime. Which means, that they should get something else, while also mining Bitcoin. Only then they will have any reason to do so. In all other cases, it would be better for them, to simply buy some coins directly, and not mine anything, or mine altcoins, and sell them for BTCs. I can only guess, how many altcoins wouldn't exist at all, if mining would be better supported by the Bitcoin Core client, and if users could mine a bunch of satoshis over LN, or do other things like that.

If there nanoscale mining among node operators were more common it would also open up some useful options for improved sybil resistance and anti-DOS

For now, I have my own "nanoscale mining", where producing a double-spend for any transaction can be as easy or hard, as users want: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5551080.0

And to test it properly, only CPUs are needed. Having more power is often not worth it, because another party will usually burn more electricity, to double-spend it, than it could earn, by taking coins, protected in that way. Also because Proof of Work is not the only protection, but it is complementary with other things like multisig, locktime, and so on.