Unfortunately, the current form of Testnet is doomed to have value, just like BTC. Its scarcity makes it a valuable asset. And no reset will change that. It will only result in repeated resets, multiple versions of testnet, and people never learning.
I have to agree with emsit here. Never underestimate the ability for people to ascribe value to something with provable scarcity. I like Peter Todd's suggestion of removing the halving completely, so that plenty new coins are always coming into circulation, but it received pushback for removing the regular 210,000-block events. Here are a few dumb ideas to chew on to see if we can come up with something better:
- Doubling every 210,000 blocks. This leads to the supply growing exponentially; impossible to try to ascribe value to that.
- Adding 1 to the subsidy every 210,000 blocks. Still an infinite supply, closer to a standard subsidy, but there is still a change happening every 210,000 blocks.
- Subtracting 1 every 210,000 blocks. This is technically still scarce, but a much gentler decline in admissions. Yes, it eventually drops to 0, but after 50 events instead of the current 33 halvings.
- Change "half" to some other fraction like "nine-tenths". Still technically scarce, gentler decline in rewards, but still retains the property of having a geometric sequence to the subsidies.
Like I said, dumb ideas, but I think there is a decision to be made between avoiding a future reset by mitigating reasons people add value to tBTC (such as scarcity) and expecting/planning for more regular resets when people start inevitably valuing tBTC.