<p>"Immature" blocks should be valid, but they require 100-120 confirmations before they can be spent.  On testnet this may take up to 40 hours or so.  If you have the block hash (it should be in <code>debug.log</code> if not elsewhere), you ought to be able to find these blocks on <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/testnet" rel="nofollow">http://blockexplorer.com/testnet</a> and see them linked into the block chain.</p>

<p>"Orphaned" blocks can happen if you find a block, but unbeknown to you, someone else has already found a block linked to the same parent.  This seems to be more common on testnet, which doesn't seem to be very efficient at propagating newly found blocks.  (I don't know why, perhaps there are a lot of experimental clients which don't relay blocks properly.)  This can especially happen due to the 20-minute rule on testnet, whereby if no block is found within 20 minutes of the last one, the difficulty temporarily drops to 1.  When this happens, typically lots of people find a block within a few seconds, and there is a race to see whose will be propagated and accepted first.  So every time this happens, there's a good chance you'll find a block at difficulty 1, but an even better chance that someone beat you to it, and your block will be orphaned.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2013-12-05T23:02:13.100Z
I need a private source of gobs of funny-money for testing purposes - I work with a bitcoin startup doing a lot of development.  It seems the problem lies in the difficulty level, even at '1', it is too difficult for our small VM instance to mine effectively.  I'd share the patch we used to solve this, but this comment box is too limited and I can't paste it in.  Ping me if anyone is interested in greatly speeding up their private testnet mining.
user10215
CC BY-SA 3.0
2013-12-05T21:15:41.503Z
2013-12-05T21:15:41.503Z
Nate Eldredge
<p>I've been chugging away on multiple machines for days, and while I get a lot of 'unconfirmed' and 'orphaned' and 'immature' blocks, nothing lands in my wallet.</p>

<p>Anyone else having this problem?  From the blockexplorer site, I can see blocks being mined as recent as today - I wonder if some are mine, and they're somehow sent to /dev/null?</p>

<p>If anyone can point me towards a real solution here, I can repay you with some counterfiet BTC.  :D</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2013-12-05T19:30:47.623Z
You don't necessarily have to mine them: http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/17690/is-there-any-where-to-get-free-testnet-bitcoins
Earlz
<difficulty><testnet><mining-technical-details><block-propagation-time><immature-coins>
Anyone successfully mining bitcoins in Testnet3?
user10215
# Anyone successfully mining bitcoins in Testnet3?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2013-12-05)

I've been chugging away on multiple machines for days, and while I get a lot of 'unconfirmed' and 'orphaned' and 'immature' blocks, nothing lands in my wallet.

Anyone else having this problem? From the blockexplorer site, I can see blocks being mined as recent as today - I wonder if some are mine, and they're somehow sent to /dev/null?

If anyone can point me towards a real solution here, I can repay you with some counterfiet BTC. :D

**Tags:** difficulty, testnet, mining-technical-details, block-propagation-time, immature-coins

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: You don't necessarily have to mine them: http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/17690/is-there-any-where-to-get-free-testnet-bitcoins  

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## 1 answers

### Answer by username_2 on 2013-12-05. Score: 1

"Immature" blocks should be valid, but they require 100-120 confirmations before they can be spent. On testnet this may take up to 40 hours or so. If you have the block hash (it should be in `debug.log` if not elsewhere), you ought to be able to find these blocks on <http://blockexplorer.com/testnet> and see them linked into the block chain.

"Orphaned" blocks can happen if you find a block, but unbeknown to you, someone else has already found a block linked to the same parent. This seems to be more common on testnet, which doesn't seem to be very efficient at propagating newly found blocks. (I don't know why, perhaps there are a lot of experimental clients which don't relay blocks properly.) This can especially happen due to the 20-minute rule on testnet, whereby if no block is found within 20 minutes of the last one, the difficulty temporarily drops to 1. When this happens, typically lots of people find a block within a few seconds, and there is a race to see whose will be propagated and accepted first. So every time this happens, there's a good chance you'll find a block at difficulty 1, but an even better chance that someone beat you to it, and your block will be orphaned.

> **Comments:**
> **username_0**: I need a private source of gobs of funny-money for testing purposes - I work with a bitcoin startup doing a lot of development.  It seems the problem lies in the difficulty level, even at '1', it is too difficult for our small VM instance to mine effectively.  I'd share the patch we used to solve this, but this comment box is too limited and I can't paste it in.  Ping me if anyone is interested in greatly speeding up their private testnet mining.  

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