As a Web3 beginner, I was recently attracted to Sony's Layer2 project Soneium, mainly because I heard there might be an airdrop. I spent a lot of time this afternoon finally running through the entire testnet process. I almost gave up several times along the way. Now I’m recording the real experience of encountering issues in hopes of helping friends who want to participate.

**Test Subject: Soneium Minato (Sony's official Layer2 testnet)**

## Step 1: Solving the Funding Issue

This step was the most frustrating. At first, I tried to get test tokens from big-name faucets like Chainlink and Alchemy, but all of them failed. Why? Because they considered my wallet new, with a mainnet balance of 0, so they wouldn’t give me a single penny. It felt really helpless.

Later, I found pk910’s PoW mining faucet, which was a lifesaver. After about 10 minutes of idling, I successfully mined 0.6 Sepolia ETH using my computer CPU. The speed wasn’t very fast, but it was stable and definitely produced coins.

## Step 2: Cross-Chain Operation

With some initial funds, I felt much more confident. I directly used Superbridge to transfer 0.5 ETH from Sepolia to Soneium chain. I chose the official bridge because I heard it has the highest weight and should be more trusted and involved.

## Step 3: On-Chain Interaction

I originally planned to make a trade on a DEX to generate some transaction records, but the testnet website crashed (404 error). Suddenly, I had an idea—I made a "self-to-self" transfer—although it didn’t cost anything, it successfully recorded a transaction on the chain, proving the account’s activity.

## The Most Difficult Step: Transfer Failure

Finally, the funds arrived, but the transfer kept failing. After checking for a long time, I found that the default Gas fee estimation in my wallet app was too low—below 0.000001 ETH—and the chain simply wouldn’t confirm the transaction.

**The solution is simple**: When sending a transaction, click on "Network Fees," select "Custom," and change the Gas Price from the default 0.01 to 5 Gwei. It will go through instantly. I call this step "Great Effort, Great Miracle."

## 3 Tips for Beginners

**First, choosing the right faucet is crucial**: Don’t waste time on big-name faucets with a new account. Instead, go for PoW mining faucets—they cost a bit in electricity but guarantee you’ll get tokens.

**Second, never click MAX when cross-chain transferring**: Make sure to leave at least 0.1 ETH on Sepolia for subsequent transaction fees; otherwise, you’ll be stuck later.

**Third, don’t panic if a transfer fails**: Most likely, it’s because the Gas fee is too low. Manually increasing it will solve the problem.

Overall, the Soneium testnet experience was pretty good. Although I encountered many pitfalls, I learned a lot about Layer2 interactions, cross-chain bridging, and wallet operations. If you’re considering participating, these tips should help you avoid unnecessary detours.