Did you know?

[Baofeng]

Did you know that during the early days of bitcoin, a serious bug was discovered?

The "value out" in this block #74638 is quite strange:

Code:

{
    "hash" : "0000000000790ab3f22ec756ad43b6ab569abf0bddeb97c67a6f7b1470a7ec1c",
    "ver" : 1,
    "prev_block" : "0000000000606865e679308edf079991764d88e8122ca9250aef5386962b6e84",
    "mrkl_root" : "618eba14419e13c8d08d38c346da7cd1c7c66fd8831421056ae56d8d80b6ec5e",
    "time" : 1281891957,
    "bits" : 469794830,
    "nonce" : 28192719,
    "n_tx" : 2,
    "tx" : [
        {
            "hash" : "012cd8f8910355da9dd214627a31acfeb61ac66e13560255bfd87d3e9c50e1ca",
            "ver" : 1,
            "vin_sz" : 1,
            "vout_sz" : 1,
            "lock_time" : 0,
            "in" : [
                {
                    "prev_out" : {
                        "hash" : "0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000",
                        "n" : 4294967295
                    },
                    "coinbase" : "040e80001c028f00"
                }
            ],
            "out" : [
                {
                    "value" : 50.51000000,
                    "scriptPubKey" : "0x4F4BA55D1580F8C3A8A2C78E8B7963837C7EA2BD8654B9D96C51994E6FCF6E65E1CF9A844B044EEA125F26C26DBB1B207E4C3F2A098989DA9BA5BA455E830F7504 OP_CHECKSIG"
                }
            ]
        },
        {
            "hash" : "1d5e512a9723cbef373b970eb52f1e9598ad67e7408077a82fdac194b65333c9",
            "ver" : 1,
            "vin_sz" : 1,
            "vout_sz" : 2,
            "lock_time" : 0,
            "in" : [
                {
                    "prev_out" : {
                        "hash" : "237fe8348fc77ace11049931058abb034c99698c7fe99b1cc022b1365a705d39",
                        "n" : 0
                    },
                    "scriptSig" : "0xA87C02384E1F184B79C6ACF070BEA45D5B6A4739DBFF776A5D8CE11B23532DD05A20029387F6E4E77360692BB624EEC1664A21A42AA8FC16AEB9BD807A4698D0CA8CDB0021024530 0x965D33950A28B84C9C19AB64BAE9410875C537F0EB29D1D21A60DA7BAD2706FBADA7DF5E84F645063715B7D0472ABB9EBFDE5CE7D9A74C7F207929EDAE975D6B04"
                }
            ],
            "out" : [
                {
                    "value" : 92233720368.54277039,
                    "scriptPubKey" : "OP_DUP OP_HASH160 0xB7A73EB128D7EA3D388DB12418302A1CBAD5E890 OP_EQUALVERIFY OP_CHECKSIG"
                },
                {
                    "value" : 92233720368.54277039,
                    "scriptPubKey" : "OP_DUP OP_HASH160 0x151275508C66F89DEC2C5F43B6F9CBE0B5C4722C OP_EQUALVERIFY OP_CHECKSIG"
                }
            ]
        }
    ],
    "mrkl_tree" : [
        "012cd8f8910355da9dd214627a31acfeb61ac66e13560255bfd87d3e9c50e1ca",
        "1d5e512a9723cbef373b970eb52f1e9598ad67e7408077a82fdac194b65333c9",
        "618eba14419e13c8d08d38c346da7cd1c7c66fd8831421056ae56d8d80b6ec5e"
    ]
}

92233720368.54277039 BTC?  Is that UINT64_MAX, I wonder?

Strange block 74638. It causes a out Value:92233720368.54(7ffffffffff85ee0).

But the good thing about the bug is, in just a matter of hours, Satoshi is already up to the challenge and fixed it with a new release. Proving that in it's early years, bitcoin was not flawless but everyone was really somewhat very active and every flaw was reported and fixed right away by Satoshi himself. I really love to read earlier post when this community was very close knit and of course spammers are non-existent.

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[pooya87]

Proving that in it's early years, bitcoin was not flawless

you are confusing the "implementation bug" with "protocol bug" and they are very different. Bitcoin was and is still is flawless but the all the implementations are filled with flaws. to this day we still find new bugs and from time to time we even introduce new bugs in our software. that is inevitable.
here are the two recent examples of serious bugs that were found in two different implementations of bitcoin: 1 and 2 but neither of these mean bitcoin is flawed!

[davis196]

No programming code or software is perfect at the very begining.Every code has bugs at the early stage,that's why every software/app needs regular updates to fix all the issues.
If Satoshi just created bitcoin/blockchain without leaving the code open-source and without updating it,bitcoin would have failed by now.

[Ziskinberg]

Only those who are good in programming would understand it, majority of the users are not aware of that.
I fall in love with bitcoin because of it's decentralized system and limited supply, I am more on an investor than a user, and my trust to the system were influence by a lot of people who trusted it, especially in this forum.

It could not be perfect but as long as it's just a minor bug, it won't affect the confidence of the people to use and hold this coin.

[Upgrade00]

Anyone who has ever googled bitcoin would be aware of this bug which was discovered during the wee years, and is the first and only time a bug has been detected and a hack happened directly on the Bitcoin network.
Subsequent hacks were implemented on exchanges and other sites related to cryptocurrency but not directly linked with the bitcoin network.

[Baofeng]

Proving that in it's early years, bitcoin was not flawless

you are confusing the "implementation bug" with "protocol bug" and they are very different. Bitcoin was and is still is flawless but the all the implementations are filled with flaws. to this day we still find new bugs and from time to time we even introduce new bugs in our software. that is inevitable.
here are the two recent examples of serious bugs that were found in two different implementations of bitcoin: 1 and 2 but neither of these mean bitcoin is flawed!

I don't know where you coming from, but in my years of being a testers this is just a classic example of 'implementation bug'.

No programming code or software is perfect at the very begining.Every code has bugs at the early stage,that's why every software/app needs regular updates to fix all the issues.
If Satoshi just created bitcoin/blockchain without leaving the code open-source and without updating it,bitcoin would have failed by now.

Thank you very much, this is exactly my point. And thanks to this community who acted as a 'tester' themselves in it's early years, defects are found and fixed right away by Satoshi. And don't get me wrong, this is not a bad thing. As you have said code or programs are not perfect, even Bill Gates early years of development with Microsoft has flawed as well.

Anyone who has ever googled bitcoin would be aware of this bug which was discovered during the wee years, and is the first and only time a bug has been detected and a hack happened directly on the Bitcoin network.
Subsequent hacks were implemented on exchanges and other sites related to cryptocurrency but not directly linked with the bitcoin network.

Did you read my post? I was asking if you are aware of the early bugs of bitcoin and you telling me to to checked with Google? Did you read Satoshi's post here in the community when you joined this forum?

[Tamilson]

It could not be perfect but as long as it's just a minor bug, it won't affect the confidence of the people to use and hold this coin.

That's sure thing tho and let just thanks Nakamoto for being quick when community  see some bugs. If that didn't happen blockchain now will be a total mess.

And so now, what if we see some minor bugs now, who will fix then? I know it's open source and so can anyone that knows this can fix this?

[CoinClarity]

That's sure thing tho and let just thanks Nakamoto for being quick when community  see some bugs. If that didn't happen blockchain now will be a total mess.

Like any software, there were quite a few bugs discovered earlier on, hence all the different updates to the bitcoin client. OP pointed out a particularly catastrophic incidence which was resolved quite quickly. Its true that bitcoin benefited from having such an active community in the early days.

And so now, what if we see some minor bugs now, who will fix then? I know it's open source and so can anyone that knows this can fix this?

Not anyone can fix it but anyone can certainly report a problem and a solution to the Bitcoin Core team, who possess keys which access the GitHub repository and can post updated software versions.

[poptok1]

Wouldn't it be extreme naivety, to think there was no obvious bugs in the early days?
I for example wasn't aware of this particular error but in general I'm fully realising the fact of bugs existence.
That's why still some cautiousness is necessary, who knows what kind of surprises are hidden in the code?
After all it still 0.17... early beta? 

[sheenshane]

No programming code or software is perfect at the very begining.Every code has bugs at the early stage,that's why every software/app needs regular updates to fix all the issues.
If Satoshi just created bitcoin/blockchain without leaving the code open-source and without updating it,bitcoin would have failed by now.

You have a view of a point there since Satoshi leaving the code of bitcoin open source and many developers trying to make their own versions and costume  their own bitcoin software to control tools and also colaborating other versions on Github, here: https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin
However, since it is an open source code they can't avoid to have a minor bug since Bitcoin code was created but it has an action to fix by Bitcoin core developers.

[kryptqnick]

Proving that in it's early years, bitcoin was not flawless

Bitcoin was and is still is flawless but the all the implementations are filled with flaws. to this day we still find new bugs and from time to time we even introduce new bugs in our software. that is inevitable.
here are the two recent examples of serious bugs that were found in two different implementations of bitcoin: 1 and 2 but neither of these mean bitcoin is flawed!

I don't know about you but what happened in #1 really changed my attitude towards Bitcoin. I agree it was implementation bug but it was too serious, and I formerly believed that such a thing was not possible at all with this coin: https://www.coindesk.com/the-latest-bitcoin-bug-was-so-bad-developers-kept-its-full-details-a-secret. I think that limited supply and impossibility of faking Bitcoin are among key advantages of this coin. If due to some upgrade bitcoins appeared out of thin air, it is very disturbing. It's good that everything was quicly fixed, but one day we might not get so lucky, some people might refuse to upgrade, and this blockchain will be in danger.

[Mpamaegbu]

OP, what really does that matter anyway. Programming faults are prevalent in every new coding and I don't think it's anything to be documented. The only exciting thing I want to read about Bitcoin in the past is how btc was airdropped. Please, was there anything like that? Where can I read about such if any.

[Upgate]

Well that was when it was new and growing so it having a bug should not be much of a surprise.
Well can the bug mean that when a transcation is made it would be made more than once? What's the negative effect of the bug?

[mirakal]

Well that was when it was new and growing so it having a bug should not be much of a surprise.
Well can the bug mean that when a transcation is made it would be made more than once? What's the negative effect of the bug?

These are the serious bug according to pooya87, you can read it, all discovered in 2018.

New info escalates importance: upgrading to 0.16.3 is REQUIRED
Critical Electrum vulnerability

[pooya87]

Proving that in it's early years, bitcoin was not flawless

you are confusing the "implementation bug" with "protocol bug" and they are very different. Bitcoin was and is still is flawless but the all the implementations are filled with flaws. to this day we still find new bugs and from time to time we even introduce new bugs in our software. that is inevitable.
here are the two recent examples of serious bugs that were found in two different implementations of bitcoin: 1 and 2 but neither of these mean bitcoin is flawed!

I don't know where you coming from, but in my years of being a testers this is just a classic example of 'implementation bug'.

that is what i said!
but in the part i quoted, you are saying "bitcoin was not flawless" which means the protocol. which in my opinion is a false statement.

Proving that in it's early years, bitcoin was not flawless

Bitcoin was and is still is flawless but the all the implementations are filled with flaws. to this day we still find new bugs and from time to time we even introduce new bugs in our software. that is inevitable.
here are the two recent examples of serious bugs that were found in two different implementations of bitcoin: 1 and 2 but neither of these mean bitcoin is flawed!

I don't know about you but what happened in #1 really changed my attitude towards Bitcoin. I agree it was implementation bug but it was too serious, and I formerly believed that such a thing was not possible at all with this coin: https://www.coindesk.com/the-latest-bitcoin-bug-was-so-bad-developers-kept-its-full-details-a-secret. I think that limited supply and impossibility of faking Bitcoin are among key advantages of this coin. If due to some upgrade bitcoins appeared out of thin air, it is very disturbing. It's good that everything was quicly fixed, but one day we might not get so lucky, some people might refuse to upgrade, and this blockchain will be in danger.

that is exactly why i tried to make that distinction. i don't know how clear my comment was but i tried!

you are already correct, things like that are impossible with bitcoin because the protocol is strong and has no bugs, exploits, workarounds,... (hint some altcoins do have all these in their protocol!) and that makes bitcoin strong. but implementations will always have bugs like that. and they are not as bad as a protocol problem. why? because for example if that #1 was indeed exploited it would have split the network into two: 1. those who were running a buggy implementation (certain versions of core) 2. those who were running an implementation without the bug (other versions of bitcoin core and other full node implementation). all the while the protocol is working fine and bitcoin continues as it should on the right chain.

[libert19]

It's always like this in crypto world, softwares are not without bugs, how fast you can identify and solve that what counts.

[creeps]

It's always like this in crypto world, softwares are not without bugs, how fast you can identify and solve that what counts.

Exactly, the early years of bitcoin is still a pump and dump and a lot of criticism. But I admire how Satoshi handle this one and look at bitcoin now. This is a proof that Satoshi is a very smart person and they are serious on this. I don't know much about the history of bitcoin, but knowing this kind of bugs before, its pretty obvious a more dedicated leader that has a vision to provide a quality financial system.

[Kakmakr]

Many people who worked on the protocol <code> after Satoshi left, made comments about Satoshi's sloppy coding skills. Yes, it was not riddled with exploits, but it was sloppy to say the least.  A lot of the changes that were made, where simple cosmetics and cleaning of the code. 

This is one of the reasons why Bitcoin developers take their time to scrutinize the code and also why Peer review are so important. You need to cover all the bases, before the code are realised into the wild. <It is a multi-Billion dollar project> 

[Ains_sama]

the beginning of the creation of bitcoin was indeed very good, and I think bitcoin is still good until now, and I am sure that bitcoin will always develop.

[kaya11]

No programming code or software is perfect at the very begining.Every code has bugs at the early stage,that's why every software/app needs regular updates to fix all the issues.
If Satoshi just created bitcoin/blockchain without leaving the code open-source and without updating it,bitcoin would have failed by now.

So that is the most profound reason I have ever read about Bitcoin Core being an open source. For other developers to find any flaws and continue developing Blockchain. I thought he was just a nice guy giving his scientific experiments to the world for free.