We have internally debated resetting testnet because it has become pretty large. We are currently planning on resetting testnet AFTER we finish the hard fork demo. Are there any concerns or questions?
Sounds like a good plan, since the testnet just exists for testing purposes, I see no reason to download a ton of blocks before you can start testing.
I think that makes a lot of sense. You could (which would be more work) have a vote on resetting testnet, and have clients then refuse to vote on the old testnet (which would render it pretty unusable) while restarting with a new genesis block on the new one.
I think that would make testnet a little too different from mainnet which is generally not something I like. A fresh start on testnet every once in a while however is a nice thing.
Yeah, that makes sense. Resetting TestNet on the latest version of the software will, effectively, result in a hardfork where the current version ticketholders deny the old testnet votes. It would be interesting to see if people try to keep the old testnet running.
Testnet doesn't have too many nodes (not too surprising since most people have no reason to run a testnet node) so I suspect the only testnet will disappear pretty quickly.
I agree with @jcv. I really don't expect the existing testnet to last very long. First, there is no economic value associated with it (by design) and thus there is no incentive to maintain old versions of it. I suspect that alone would be enough. Second, new software versions will use the new testnet by default as well, so the only realistic way to continue to maintain an older version would be to continue to run the associated older software alongside the new. That includes both the chain daemon and the wallet at a bare minimum. Maintaining two different versions of the binaries all in an attempt to maintain something the vast majority has moved on from doesn't seem like it would be a good use of time.
While I'm not excited about having to actually do it, I am excited about the smaller blockchain and no longer having a wallet that is larger than 1Gb.
Testnet has been reset. It retains the result of the hard fork vote on the previous testnet. This only applies to the latest version of the software. Anyone still running previous releases will still be using the old test network, however, since there are no longer any miners (currently at least) mining on the old network, it will no longer advance.