Author: Jeremy Rubin 2022-03-05 16:19:26
Published on: 2022-03-05T16:19:26+00:00
The conversation on the bitcoin-dev mailing list has debated the usefulness of testnet in light of signet, a more reliable testing network with improved security measures. The current system of pegging worthless coins into another system of worthless coins only raises the barriers to entry for using a signet. While testnet allows anyone to become a miner and mine a block on some CPU, signet sets challenges such as 1-of-2 multisig to restrict who can mine, creating an "unreliably reliable" chain. The lack of coins in testnet is not a bug but a feature, providing an opportunity to witness what can happen with a chain after many halvings. Additionally, miners in testnet can create, move, and destroy zero satoshis, extending the precision of coins so that a single coin in testnet can be represented as thousands of coins in a signet sidechain. Despite this, there are still discussions regarding sidechains that need to be tested before running on mainnet. Creating a new signet with new rules is currently the popular way of testing new features, but questions remain about why new coins are created out of thin air instead of being pegged into testnet3, which would provide as much chainwork protection as testnet3.Testnet3 seems to be sufficient for representing the main chain during sidechain testing since it is permissionless and open, allowing anyone to start mining sidechain blocks with a CPU. Furthermore, extreme scenarios like stealing all coins from some sidechain can be tested publicly due to blockstorms and regular chain reorgs. To put this proposal into practice, one Taproot address per signet can be created in testnet3, and a testnet transaction every three months could move coins to and from testnet3, enabling the same coins to travel between many signets. New signets can be pegged in with a 1:1 ratio, and existing signets can be transformed into signet sidechains.
Updated on: 2023-06-15T17:36:57.352591+00:00