I am a newbee to Ethereum and doing some research. I have installed the Ethereum Wallet app and synchronized the testnet.
However, to deploy my first contract in testnet, it requires some Ether, so can someone guide how to get that? I have tried to mine in testnet but unable to earn anything yet. So, are there any other ways?
The 2 best ways I found were:
1) Instant: an ether faucet here: http://faucet.ropsten.be:3001/
2) An hour or two: Switch on Mining from the menu Develop > Start Mining (Testnet only) or Command Shift M
You'll instantly have 1 ETH for each address you send to the faucet, and 20 or 30 test ETH from mining in a few hours at least.
you can get ethers on the testnet simply by using Metamask plugin. here's how:
You need beforehand install metamask plugin from here, then follow the steps shown in the following picture :
1-press buy button :
2- press the ropsten test faucet button :
3- you will be redirect to https://faucet.metamask.io/ then request your free ethers.
Update: test networks doesn't use PoW anymore, but PoA. You have to ask money by faucet.
You could use metamask for Kovan too. Just install metamask.
Outdated: In Ethereum-Wallet, there was an option for CPU mining in the Develop menu. Use it to mine ethers (and win ethers). If you can't mine, you should have a problem (probably network). On Homestead (the production network), cpu mining is inefficient.
Otherwise, i recommend you to create your own private blockchain. You could use our script to build one in two lines: https://github.com/regispietra/CreatePrivateEthereum With this script, you install a blockchain and can use Ethereum wallet.
There are a number of 'faucets' which will send you Ether on the testnet so that you can get started. Several of these have easy web interfaces which you can simply copy-and-paste your address into- this may be easiest if you're just getting started with Wallet. I had luck sending ether to my initial account with this faucet; once you have some intial ether you can create a wallet contract or run smart contracts.
I unsuccessfully tried using the zerogox faucet to send ether to the main account created by Wallet- it appears that the zerogox faucet may only be set up to send to wallet contracts on the blockchain, not externally owned accounts. However, once I had created my first wallet contract, the zerogox faucet worked fine for filling it with wei!
There are so called "faucets", API endpoints that send you ether on the testnet (called morden). I created a CLI script to make this easier for you. Just pass in your testnet wallet address and et voila: ether gets sent to you.
p.s. I am in the process of creating a own faucet for this one. The public ones turn out to change in quality and availability.
