The economic incentives behind mining on testnet and mainnet are fundamentally different
How or why? Are you sure?

Testnet may likely be normal POW in 2026 because the 20 min mining difficulty is getting pwned by people who found an incentive to test the
testnet worktest network...
point an ASIC at v4 and watch your ass get handed to you. I view this as a good thing in all ways.
so I believe using testnet as a model for how things will unfold on mainnet is far from accurate.
I would have agreed with you 10 years ago, but through my experience... Testnet is a KILLER forecast for what is to come to Mainnet.
I've seen it over and over. I saw this OP_Return literally coming in Testnet... Testnet is the best indicator of what is to come if you are paying attention. Jameson Lopp attacking v3, preparing v4 for his
investment*whatever* in the company Citrea, which was brutally obvious from my point of view.
Blew my mind as well, all of Testnet has blow my mind, it's hella interesting.
Watch them launch v5 Testnet after Citrea finishes with v4 and goes to mainnet without needing to do their work around. (my guess

)
All of this started in Testnet... like most other things. It's a great place to break "the rules" and a tiny mix of the two (mainnet/testnet) makes Testnet "spunky". As it should be, but Bitcoin isn't $0.03 like it was when Satoshi made his post. Times have changed.which were supposed to be worthless
It has never been worthless. Period.
(Perhaps in the future)
One human can not assign another human's opinion of worthless. It's not even a crypto thing at that point. Just kind of a crypto blanket. It's interesting.
0 is a BIG fucking goal for something global. It's not possible. It's like dividing x by 2 (x= the POW, work any work[clicking a mouse even]) and expecting zero. (Unless you "rob" them! Which perhaps they deserve(?), but I don't think they do... they seem like OK folks tbh from what I can tell. Goofy, but that's cool in a way. You have to be goofy to be fucking with a testnet, which ironically I see as a smart way for smart people to potentially prepare for mainnet. Making everyone a bit goofy.)
I'm 99% sure I could reboot v1 and v2, want to see me do it or nah? Just a little shock and these fuckers come back to life. People think that old POW is cool.
How hard do you want me to try to go with this test? If it fails, who cares, it's testnet! Fuck anyone that does anything with it, right?
(god I fucking LOVE it)
If the OP feel like this is not proper technical or OT feel free to deleted my post.
FYI, this isn't self-moderator thread.
^ But the mods could still get you, but they got bosses here too. Bitcoin is sectioned off interestingly. It's so fucking cool... no one knows anything unless you know something.
I don't take any one bitching too seriously in or about Bitcoin if they aren't on the Blockchain and/or Bitcointalk "talking" their shit. (Unless it's "obvious"
)