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/tb1qum986qkqf363jhaau2nlavyehdqg487p8m2yduSure, 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!" roflThey 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. 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.