[Bitcoin-development] is there a way to do bitcoin-staging?

[Adam Back <adam@cypherspace.org>]

Is there a way to experiment with new features - eg committed coins - that
doesnt involve an altcoin in the conventional sense, and also doesnt impose
a big testing burden on bitcoin main which is a security and testing risk?

eg lets say some form of merged mine where an alt-coin lets call it
bitcoin-staging?  where the coins are the same coins as on bitcoin, the
mining power goes to bitcoin main, so some aspect of merged mining, but no
native mining.  and ability to use bitcoins by locking them on bitcoin to
move them to bitcoin-staging and vice versa (ie exchange them 1:1
cryptographically, no exchange).

Did anyone figure anything like that out?  Seems vaguely doable and
maybe productive.  The only people with coins at risk of defects in a new
feature, or insufficiently well tested novel feature are people with coins
on bitcoin-staging.

Yes I know about bitcoin-test this is not it.  I mean a real live system,
with live value, but that is intentionally wanting to avoid forking bitcoins
parameters, nor value, nor mindshare dillution.  In this way something
potentially interesting could move forward faster, and be les risky to the
main bitcoin network.  eg particularly defenses against 

It might also be a more real world test test (after bitcoin-test) because
some parameters are different on test, and some issues may not manifest
without more real activity.

Then also bitcoin could cherry pick interesting patches and merge them after
extensive real-world validation with real-money at stake (by early
adopters).

Adam