Testing Tether (USDT) Transactions for ERC721 NFT Purchases on Testnets

Hello OpenZeppelin Community,

I'm working on a project involving the purchase of NFTs, issued as ERC721 tokens, using Tether (USDT) as the currency. My challenge arises when trying to replicate and test this functionality on a testnet, given the absence of a Tether contract address on these networks.

From what I've gathered, one approach is to deploy a mock Tether contract to mimic USDT's behavior for testing purposes. However, I'm concerned about the complexity and the potential discrepancies between the mock contract's behavior and that of the actual Tether contract on the mainnet. My primary goal is to ensure that my testing environment reliably mirrors real-world operations, minimizing errors and unexpected behaviors.

Has anyone in this forum faced a similar challenge and found an efficient solution? Specifically, I'm looking for insights or guidance on:

  1. The best practices for creating or obtaining a reliable test version of the Tether (USDT) contract on testnets.
  2. Strategies to ensure that transactions and behaviors in the testing environment accurately reflect those on the mainnet.
  3. Any existing tools, scripts, or contracts that the community uses for this purpose.

I appreciate any advice, shared experiences, or resources that could help navigate this aspect of my project.