Bitcoin Forum

Deep thoughts and insightful commentary on possible future bitcoin inflation bugs that could spell disaster for bitcoin.

a bug that is already fixed can not happen again! and since it is a well known and well documented incident, others who are re-implementing bitcoin won't repeat the same thing either.

there have been two known inflation bugs, though only one of them was executed in the wild.

• 2010 value overflow bug (https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Value_overflow_incident)
• 2018 duplicate input vulnerability (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5035144.0;all)

these specific inflation bugs have been fixed yes, but we can't be sure they'll be the last.

According to bitcoin (BTC) node stats reported on the website of bitcoin core developer Luke Dashjr, 60.22% of the coin’s full-nodes are running software still vulnerable to the inflation bug at press time. - Source : https://finance.yahoo.com/news/research-60-bitcoin-full-nodes-154800366.html ( Cointelegraph May 6, 2019 )

I would have hoped that people running full nodes would have reacted quicker when a bug like this was found and that they would have updated their client software a lot faster.  ::)

According to https://coin.dance/nodes (https://coin.dance/nodes), 90%+ of all publicly accessible nodes are running a version > 0.16.2 which is not vulnerable with the majority being >= 0.17.0

And 60%+ running a vulnerable version indeed sounds too high.

I think if they have fixed that inflation bugs then it will not happen again, but since they are so many bugs assume that any moment something could happen and I think they will not allowed sombe bugs again.

With the recent changes and advancements, I feel like it'll be pretty hard for another bug to be found - the lightning network was a huge overhaul of everything, and I don't see any bugs being found in the next couple of years.

Although, I just read the yahoo article - I'm pretty torn now. Expected pretty seasoned bitcoin users to keep their clients up to date...

I think you're mixing things up here.... the inflation bug affected the main-chain and not LN.

As for 'seasoned' Bitcoin users not upgrading their clients.... it's not that simple with how a lot of nodes are operated by entities (we don't know who they are) who might not be aware of what's going on.

Another thing is that the clients that aren't upgraded aren't public nodes, so the risk is extremely limited in this case-- what matters is that the public nodes are upgrading whenever they have to, and they fortunately do. :)

Why would it have "another" inflation bug? The code has been available for everyone to see for more than a decade, and NOBODY has spotted it? You see the whole point of open source software is to catch these things. Yes, there have been cases sometimes of old bugs that remained undiscovered, and then quietly resolved without most people never noticing, but something like Bitcoin surely has the eyes of several people on it, for both good and not so good reasons.

The original was the author's mistake, it was spotted and fixed as things normally done in open source projects, transparently. That's why you can still find that discussion when it happened nearly a decade ago...

"Possible inflation bugs" looks like someone intentionally wants to do bad journalism. If you have the proof, show the evidence.

You really think it's impossible?

There have already been 2 inflation bugs found throughout Bitcoin's history. One of them was patched just last year (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5035144.0) -- the vulnerability was present in Bitcoin Core from versions 0.14.0 to 0.16.2. All the more reason why we should still consider Bitcoin to be in beta.


Fair point, but it's a complex issue. How do you address this:

This is so true.Developers already fix that problem why would be the problem be repeated if the hole in the system so it will never appear again.Ive never seen one bug got repeated in so many system Ive saw

This is the element of the market, it will be repeated again and again

I found it to be possible as such to be fair. There isn't really a perfect system that can exist, and all we can do about it is to react to it faster than before and try to fix it before irreversible damage happens. Besides, even if developers have fixed the previous bugs that don't really indicate any happenings of it being prevented in the future. They fixed it alright but prevention is another thing.

Yes, I agree with what you said that there isn't really a perfect system that you will not change even small codes and for me, there was a chance that Bitcoin has another inflation bug, but this chance is very meager. They already fixed the inflation bugs, and I think it won't happen again. Also, many ppl see this thing right ? just need to react fast and so that we can prevent some big problems in the future. :)

certain things can not be solved, and in software development having bugs is a part of the deal. all we can do is have higher test coverage testing all the edge cases we can find but in the end there will be some nasty unexpected behavior in the code that nobody could foresee.

most bitcoin full nodes are still vulnerable to the inflation bug. These nodes are still running software versions of bitcoin client that are susceptible to the inflation bug. This is actually a disadvantage to the system, rather than an advantage, as the software vulnerabilities are a clear and present danger to the fidelity of bitcoin.

It is unlikely that the inflation bug will lead to a catastrophe, for sure it will be something else or someone else

We cannot tell if a bug will occur again in bitcoin. Though the bug was already fixed since many developers worked hand in hand to solve the problems as fast they can but in the future we cannot guarantee if we will encounter it again. But the chance of getting an inflation bug again is very low since after the last bug event programmers and developers are now very careful so as to protect the system from such error.

Bugs could appear from time to time, but hopefully they won't be harmful & moreover I hope the developers working with Bitcoin and blockchain technology are rigorously supervising the Bitcoin network for potential flaws. Just because Bitcoin lasted so many years so far, it has demonstrated proof-of-time so as time passes it is less likely for big flaws to show up. Here is some food for thought: what do you think is Satoshi doing behind the scenes? (if she/he/they are still alive)

in my opinion maybe in the future there will also be a bitcoin inflation bug but we can't be as clear as possible if there is a bitcoin inflation bug again we don't need to worry about that to make sure they can fix it in a short time because their current system is more modern than at in 2018 who also discovered an inflation bug and they have now fixed it and made it better so they don't experience bugs again in the future.

Inflation bug happened previously is just a one-time event, it's just a mistake that no one anticipated. They have already fixed it and I don't think they will just let it happen again. It might not affect the market but there will be circumstances if this will happen again and again.
Developers will surely keep their focus to ensure that this will never happen again.

The inflation bug problem was already solved by satoshi nakamoto. That bitcoin inflation bug was first noticed by Jeff Garzik if I remembered it well.  The inflation bug added 184 billion bitcoins into circulation and because of that Satoshi Nakamoto together with Gaven Andresen  created 0.3.10 nodes to stop bad transactions from being confirmed. Because of that node there will no more inflation bug that will occur since the 0.3.10 node will no longer confirm bad transactions.