Bitcoin’s most popular testnet is in dire need of a reboot due to a “block storm” and projects that could charge users for testnet Bitcoin (TBTC), said the co-founder of Bitcoin storage company Casa. Jameson Lopp said:
In a May 4 essay titled “The Sorrows of Bitcoin’s Testnet,” Lopp wrote that the Bitcoin Testnet (TBTC) has crashed in part due to ongoing “block storms” caused by the testnet’s unique consensus mechanism. It was argued that it should be reset to .
The Bitcoin mainnet produces an average of 144 blocks per day, but the testnet, which has “slightly different consensus rules,” sometimes produces more than 10,000 blocks per day.
Lopp explained that as a result of this “block storm,” the network’s current block height has reached 2,811,000, which is equivalent to where the Bitcoin mainnet will be in 2061.
Lopp pointed out that as the testnet’s block height increased significantly, the rewards for testnet miners were reduced to almost zero, making the network virtually unusable for developers looking for new tokens.
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Lopp also said that Bitcoin, which is currently a scarce testnet, is being adopted by certain projects that want to take advantage of the token’s scarcity.
“It is not uncommon for malicious people to prey on people’s naivety and sell testnet Bitcoin at the mainnet Bitcoin exchange rate,” he said.
He pointed to the recent example of a Bitcoin-based layer 2 network called SatoshiVM, which used TBTC to distribute airdrops to holders as an example of a project that created artificial value on the testnet for its own purposes.
He called on several projects, including a DEX called MotoSwap and a brokerage firm called Buy Tesnet, to sell testnet tokens to users.
“The only reason I advocate for a testnet reset is because the testnet should be free for developers to use. Other than that, anyone should be free to use the testnet for any development purpose they wish.”
“It is important that all wallets that support testnet boldly display on their main screen that testnet coins are worthless!” Lopp added.
Ultimately, Lopp concluded that the only way to ensure that the testnet’s value does not increase is to “instill a culture of regular resets,” and urged Bitcoin developers and users to migrate their infrastructure to “testnet4” in the coming months. Recommended.
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