How to explore the DAO on testnet?

Tomorrow we release v0.9.0 which comes with the DAO enabled on testnet. You can run it already from master now as well.

Here is an overview about the most important aspects and a short guidance. More detailed documentation will come soon. Please checkout the existing videos and documentation as well to get yourself familiar with Bisq’s future funding model, management tool and operational structure.

How to get started?

  1. Install Bisq v0.9.0
  2. Run Bisq from the terminal with the program argument --baseCurrencyNetwork=BTC_TESTNET (There is a bug in the release version so you cannot run Bisq and go to Settings/General preferences and change the Bitcoin network from mainnet to testnet. - But that should be default way to do it without terminal. Will be fixed in next update…).
  3. Get some Bitcoin testnet coins at
  4. Get some BSQ. Either buy BSQ over Bisq or ask Manfred on slack that he send you some BSQ, post your BSQ address (DAO/BSQ Wallet/Receive). For doing anything active on the DAO (making a request, voting,…) you need to have some BSQ.
  5. Once you have BSQ you can make a proposal. For instance a compensation request. Explore and play around with all features. Some require more background info. Watch the videos on our Youtube channel for more background info.
    We have setup rather short periods for compensation requests its about 2.5 days, for voting 2 days and for vote reveal another day. Be sure to have yoru Bisq app started once in the vote reveal phase otherwise your vote will not be valid!
    When making a proposal you need to define a link to Github describing the purpose of the proposal. For compensation requests you can use your existing GH request (if you did any). Otherwise feel free to add some short text or a dash. We don’t want to spam Github with entrties for testing purposes.
  6. Purpose of the testing is to help to understand the DAO process better as well to help to find bugs and get feedback. Usability was not a main priority at the moment as it is intended to be used by Bisq contributors mainly and those should be familiar with the DAO concepts. But we will work on improvements in that aspect as well. But stability and security are the highest priority. So please help us to find any weak spots!

Bounty program:

Any tester who find a major bug/flaw will get a compensation in BSQ. Here are some categories of the severity of the bug and the BSQ amount we will pay. First reporter gets the bounty. Reports which would be relevant also for current mainnet application (DAO not enabled) shoudl be done privately to avoid exposure.

  • Consensus bugs: A bug which cause DAO consensus errors so that 2 different nodes have a different view of the DAO state (vote result, if some BSQ is valid or not,…). For such critical bugs we offer a BSQ Bounty of 5000 -10000 BSQ.
  • P2P network data inconsistency: P2P data which are relevant for the DAO are inconsistant but which do not cause a consensus bug. BSQ Bounty of 1000 -5000 BSQ.
  • Critical UI bug: Display of wrong data or other UI bugs leading to a high level of confusion or wrong expectations. That might be pretty subjective. BSQ Bounty of 100 - 1000 BSQ.
  • Conceptual issues: If you find a conceptual flaw and your suggested improvement will get implemented it is also subject for a bounty: 500-3000 BSQ
  • Other bugs: Anything else not mentioned above. BSQ Bounty of 100 - 2000 BSQ.

Not subject to bounty and knows glitches:

  • UI layout issues
  • BSQ tx info (BTC used for miner fee) in the Bitcoin wallet tx view is not 100% correct and complete
  • There is a bug that button clicks sometimes do not have effect. After screen change or focus change its gone. Thats a known issue introduced wiht the redesign release, unclear yet what causes it.
  • Poor wording, missing extra infor and info popups
  • Voting cycle display might be not 100% correct (1 block off)
  • Invalid links don’t show popup but silently fail with a error log
  • Transactions for bonds, burn BSQ and assets fees are only shown after confirmation. Would be nice to show them to the tx creator also in unfonfirmed state.
  • Input validation is not 100% complete
  • DAO parameter validation, formatting and change range is not 100% tested and need more effort to get it complete
  • DAO parameters might miss some important ones. Please suggest if you think so, but its not subject to a bounty.
  • Roles are only setup for the most important. If you think some important is missing please report (not subject to a bounty).
  • Error popups if no BSQ available or others are not customized but generic error popups…
  • Proof of burn, asset fee and bond screens do not support correctly state for unconfirmed tx (at least after restart but likely also in other situations)
  • Some known issues with reorgs

Hope most of the Bisq contributors will partizipate and give feedback. If you want to earn BSQ it is your tool, so help us that we get all right!

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Hi @ManfredKarrer, going through the settings prompted me to shut down bisq for the changes to take effect–but upon reopening the program was still set on mainnet. bisq-desktop.bat --baseCurrencyNetwork=BTC_TESTNET worked, however.

Yes, sorry there was a bug introduced in the option parsing code. Will be fixed wiht next update.

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Good to know, thank you

I was awarded some BSQ in the Bisq DAO launch and genesis distribution event. I have imported my wallet seed in the new version, did Ctrl+D and my balance is zero. Have any BSQ been distributed yet on main net, or is it strictly only on test net?

The testnet dao is not connected with the old genesis. you need to start bisq in testnet mode. in mainnet only the wallet receive screen is activated. when we launch on mainnet the genesis tx will be published and then u will receive the real BSQ.

Thanks. I can wait :slight_smile: New version looks great btw. Great work. I haven’t used bisq for a while but will be back at it soon.

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