Mining on testnet4: How's it done?

So I just found out the difficulty on testnet4 is at 1, and I’m trying to figure out how to mine there. I’ve tried hooking up cgminer to my node but it just won’t connect. Any tips?

Well it’s not that simple. Even if the difficulty shows 1, when you have ASICs hammering the network, it spikes up fast. You can check the hashrate and difficulty history, it's kinda wild how it fluctuates.

Right now the difficulty is sitting around 70.95 M. Sure, you might see it at 1 right after a block is mined, but good luck keeping it that way with all the ASICs around. Most blocks are mined about every 20 minutes, so yeah, not as easy as it looks. And for your cgminer issue, maybe check out this thread for some setup help.

Just follow the changes listed in that thread. You’ll be able to mine valid blocks locally, but getting them confirmed globally? That's a gamble. It’s all about luck and speed. Using low difficulty to your advantage means you can mine more coins, especially if you time it right with the blocks. Just remember, it’s a race against those pesky ASICs.