Author: Gregory Maxwell 2018-08-31 00:06:06
Published on: 2018-08-31T00:06:06+00:00
The idea of a signed blocks testnet with a predictable structured reorg pattern has been proposed in response to the suggestion of having two testnets with different block sizes. The current mined testnet is considered too stable when you want it to be a bit unstable, and too wildly unstable when you want a bit of stability. A signed blocks testnet would be a middle ground between regtest and full on testnet, providing useful testing opportunities without being subject to the whims of the network. Although patches were previously developed for such a testnet in Bitcoin core, there were concerns about increased memory usage due to the larger size of blockindex objects. However, this could potentially be addressed by turning one of the fields (such as the merkel root) into a union of its normal value and a pointer to a look-aside block index used only in signed block testnet mode.
Updated on: 2023-05-20T17:36:13.276406+00:00