<p>You need to fill up the mempool of your regtest nodes and mine blocks (this means creating transactions --eg by using <code>sendtoaddress</code>-- and generating blocks --with <code>generatoaddress</code>).</p>
<p>For reference <a href="https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/blob/master/test/functional/feature_fee_estimation.py" rel="nofollow noreferrer">here is</a> how it's done to test <code>estimatesmartfee</code>.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-01-04T15:08:05.463Z
2020-09-30T22:46:38.760Z
2020-09-30T22:46:38.760Z
Antoine Poinsot
<p>Creating an app that utilizes estimatesmartfee, and it works in production, but I use regtest for automated testing and can't get it to return a value.</p>

<p>Looking at bitcoind tests it is splitting UTXOs in a loop etc.</p>

<p>What is the bare minimum I need to do as far as dummy transactions and mining blocks in order to get estimatesmartfee to work like it does on mainnet.</p>

<p>Thanks.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-12-17T15:34:14.193Z
what is the error message that you get? Or are you getting a constant recommendation at 1 sat/B? I am guessing you need more than 1 vMB of pending transactions
Pedro
CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-12-17T15:40:56.043Z
Question related to my unanswered question: https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/84983/how-to-convert-fee-estimates-dat-into-a-human-readable-format
Pedro
<transaction-fees><regtest>
How can I force estimatesmartfee to return estimates on regtest?
user3074620
# How can I force estimatesmartfee to return estimates on regtest?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2019-08-06)

Creating an app that utilizes estimatesmartfee, and it works in production, but I use regtest for automated testing and can't get it to return a value.

Looking at bitcoind tests it is splitting UTXOs in a loop etc.

What is the bare minimum I need to do as far as dummy transactions and mining blocks in order to get estimatesmartfee to work like it does on mainnet.

Thanks.

**Tags:** transaction-fees, regtest

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: what is the error message that you get? Or are you getting a constant recommendation at 1 sat/B? I am guessing you need more than 1 vMB of pending transactions  
> **username_1**: Question related to my unanswered question: https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/84983/how-to-convert-fee-estimates-dat-into-a-human-readable-format  

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## 1 answers

### Answer by username_2 on 2020-01-04. Score: 1

You need to fill up the mempool of your regtest nodes and mine blocks (this means creating transactions --eg by using `sendtoaddress`-- and generating blocks --with `generatoaddress`).

For reference [here is](https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/blob/master/test/functional/feature_fee_estimation.py) how it's done to test `estimatesmartfee`.


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