<p>This seemed to be a newbie question. There is what is called a "testnet", and there is more info on the Wiki at: <a href="https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Testnet" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Testnet</a></p>

<p>This site has a specific tag for it, as well: <a href="https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/testnet">https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/testnet</a></p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2013-07-04T13:00:00.360Z
2013-07-04T13:00:00.360Z
2017-04-13T12:47:33.660Z
Hanno Fietz
<p>Say I build some software around the Bitcoin system and I would like to try stuff without having to earn real BTC first, and without having to employ a lot of hashing power to grow the block chain.</p>

<p>As I understand it, the bitcoin clients connect to the network to get the authoritative block chain, so it seems I can't set up a toy network easily. Or can I? I would assume developers of the clients would need some way of testing their software.</p>

<p>While I am a software developer, and familiar with stuff like modifying source and rebuilding the client, the point of this exercise would be to run unaltered clients in a dummy environment.</p>

<client><bitcoin-core><testnet>
(How) can I run standard clients on a "toy" block chain?
Hanno Fietz
# (How) can I run standard clients on a "toy" block chain?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2013-07-04)

Say I build some software around the Bitcoin system and I would like to try stuff without having to earn real BTC first, and without having to employ a lot of hashing power to grow the block chain.

As I understand it, the bitcoin clients connect to the network to get the authoritative block chain, so it seems I can't set up a toy network easily. Or can I? I would assume developers of the clients would need some way of testing their software.

While I am a software developer, and familiar with stuff like modifying source and rebuilding the client, the point of this exercise would be to run unaltered clients in a dummy environment.

**Tags:** client, bitcoin-core, testnet


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## 1 answers

### Answer by username_0 on 2013-07-04. Score: 1

This seemed to be a newbie question. There is what is called a "testnet", and there is more info on the Wiki at: <https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Testnet>

This site has a specific tag for it, as well: <https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/testnet>


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