Testnet

Also covering Testnet3 and Testnet4

Testnet is a testing network included with Bitcoin Core and supported by many other Bitcoin applications. Testnet3 is the longest-running incarnation of testnet as of 2024, with testnet4 currently being a recently started replacement.

This topic description is a stub. We would welcome a pull request providing more background information about the topic.

Primary code and documentation

• BIP94

Optech newsletter and website mentions

2026

• Draft BIP to replace testnet4 with testnet5

2025

• LND #9620 adds testnet4 support
• Discussion about retiring testnet3 and hard forking testnet4 to remove difficulty reset rule

2024

• Rust Bitcoin #2945 introduces support for testnet4
• New CPUNet testnet announced with a modified PoW algorithm designed for CPU-only mining
• New time warp attack discovered during analysis of testnet4’s attempted time warp fix
• Bitcoin Core #29775 adds a testnet4 configuration option
• BIPs #1601 adds BIP94 specifying testnet4
• Bitcoin Core PR Review Club about testnet4
• BIP and experimental implementation of testnet4
• CoreDev.tech Berlin event with discussion about testnet4
• Discussion about resetting and modifying testnet
• Core Lightning 24.02 includes the fix for a transaction parsing bug on testnet

2023

• Bitcoin Core #28354 begins rejecting non-standard transactions by default on testnet
• Service bit for Utreexo set for testing on testnet and signet
• Question about why both testnet and signet use the tb1 bech32 address prefix?

2022

• BOLTs #968 adds default TCP ports for nodes using Bitcoin testnet and signet
• Bitcoin Core #18554 prevents the same wallet from being used on mainnet and testnet
• Bitcoin Core #23882 updates documentation about testnet3 to mention the BIP30 problem

2021

• Software incorrectly implementing compact block filtering failed on testnet
• Instructions for creating taproot transactions on testnet

2020

• Bitcoin PR review club on signet with questions and answers about testnet
• C-Lightning #3763 adds a new RPC used to open a channel to every public testnet LN node
• Question: will there by a testnet4?
• BOLTs #682 updates init message to prevent mainnet nodes from connecting to testnet nodes

2019

• C-Lightning #3268 changes the default network from Bitcoin testnet to Bitcoin mainnet
• Feedback requested on signet, an alternative to testnet

2018

• Open source release of esplora, a block explorer supporting testnet
• CVE-2018-17144 duplicate inputs bug exploited on testnet
• Discussion of resetting testent
• High block production rate on testnet leading to degradation of service

See also

• Signet

  
  

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