ckpool is causing issues on Bitcoin Testnet4 Developers facing roadblocks

We're working on Bitcoin Testnet4, but ckpool is seriously messing things up. They're mining blocks that either have no transactions at all or only include their own, completely ignoring any other transactions coming in. This kind of defeats the purpose of a testnet, which is supposed to allow for testing real transactions. Bitcoin development is already crawling along. Now we have a miner who's actually making it harder in the one place where developers can safely build and try new things. You can check it out yourself the same address has been raking in block rewards for two months straight: 👉 https://mempool.space/testnet4/address/tb1qum986qkqf363jhaau2nlavyehdqg487p8m2ydu Sure, getting rewards is all good, that’s how the system works. But actively blocking other transactions is just wrong. It's manipulation and it’s really slowing down progress. This is super frustrating for everyone in the developer community. If this doesn’t get resolved, we really might need to think about starting a new testnet.

Testnet isn't meant to "build on". What makes you think it's ckpool that's doing this? You may want to read Testnet4 Mining (Discussion) (to start): I've seen some discussion about how to improve testnet, but all suggestions have drawbacks again.

it is because he sees "ck" in the coinbase tag so he assumes it's ckpool the one owned and maintained by ck but the tag is there because people use ckpool's software which is open-source and ready to deploy for most use cases.

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!" rofl They 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.  Follow the blockchain data from the address in the OP and you'll see that they make their way to me. 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.

I don't know what you're trying to build. But in case you mean you actually mean you want to test/try something, consider Signet network instead. Looking at the recent blocks[1], there's almost no empty block mined. I don't like it either. But it's just limitation of Bitcoin protocol, although mining pool on mainnet usually don't do this since it would affect their reputation and they would miss reward from TX fee. [1] https://mempool.space/signet/mining

It doesn't really matter what you like, it is what it is.   These guys are doing plenty fine without fees.   The message is worth 100000x more than any worthless Testnet fee. (Note:  I'm really the one getting most of the blowback from this miner(s)... Almost 100% of my customer support tickets related to v4 are concerning this.) If a person can't build it in Testnet, then they need to keep working because they are going to get *raped* on Mainnet. Blocks do make it through, just with an annoying delay.  Y'all can wait.  Have a little faith and wait an hour or two. Everything in Testnet using a third party takes 12-24 hours of confirmations, anyway.

I don't know what you mean by "build" but generally speaking one of the problems that led us down this path where test networks have become harder to use is that people have been trying to "build on" this network that was meant to "test" things. When value is being associated with test coins (tokens created there, shitcoins pegged with tbtc, etc.) you should expect this kind of miners behavior as well. For almost all cases the simplest solution I've found is using RegTest which can be created locally at block 1 and mined instantly due to its lower difficulty (lower than testnet's min). So if you are actually trying to test something and not "build" like those people, try that out.