Dead by 2106

[fiulpro]

A really interesting topic :

Projected to happen in the year 2106, Bitcoin will suddenly stop running based on the code its network of users is running today. Users won’t be able to send bitcoin to others; miners securing Bitcoin’s global network will no longer serve a purpose. Bitcoin will just stop.

-Bitcoin might die in the year 2106 because of a bug in the code that's been known since 2012

Bitcoin core contributor stated how this has been known since 2012 might known even before it but it does have one simple solution.

Hard Fork

The good news is the bug is easy to fix. It’s a problem Bitcoin developers have known about for years – since at least 2012, maybe earlier, according to Bitcoin Core contributor Pieter Wuille. To some developers, the Bitcoin bug potentially sheds light on the limits to Bitcoin’s decentralization, since the community will all need to join together to fix it.

So we do have some years to fix this problem and find a solution , the community needs to work together if they do want Bitcoins to stay forever.

Why is there a problem in the first place ?

The bug is simple. Bitcoin blocks are the containers within which transactions are stored. Each Bitcoin block has a number tracking how many blocks come before it. But because of a limitation revolving around how block height numbers are stored, Bitcoin will run out of block numbers after block number 5101541.

In other words, at a block height roughly 86 years into the future, it will be impossible to produce any new blocks.

The problem with hard fork is:

Each and everyone running the node and the miners do need to update, if they don't , they will be excluded therefore it can only be successful if everyone worked together .

In the same article the author explains how Bitcoins might get ossified over time , which would in turn make it harder to change things in the future , therefore this issue needs to be addressed too .

This was personally very interesting for me since I had no idea that something like this might happen if change wasn't made on time , what are your thoughts on this ?

https://www.coindesk.com/fixing-this-bitcoin-killing-bug-will-eventually-require-a-hard-fork

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[hatshepsut93]

I don't see any big problem here, why would people be opposed to following a fork that fixes a bug? It's not a change that affects Bitcoin economics in any way. If some people will forget to update their nodes or won't be aware of the hard fork - it's their problem, they will quickly find out that there was a fork when their nodes will get stuck on legacy network with no new blocks being mined. And there likely will be a big hard fork somewhere in the future, that will fix multiple bugs and make other improvements that require forking, so users won't have to follow forks multiple times.

[gentlemand]

There've already been two hard forks have there not? Both of them were to fix totally uncontested problems. I've no doubt they're willing to do it again many years down the line too. If you want to make a squabbly stand against such a fork you'll be gaily steamrollered and left for dead by everyone else.

[supine]

Wow we are only at 2020 and we are already thinking about the problem on 2106?
We are still facing so many tragic problems on this year I think we have plenty of time to fix this problem and focus on other more important things that matter right now.
I am not saying that it isn't important but to be honest I don't think we should really discuss it right now because it is still too early and besides 86 years from now do we even know if we are still alive at that time?

[o_e_l_e_o]

This is literally a non-issue. I suggest you have a read of BIP42:

Instead, how about we stop thinking about long term issues when we'll all be dead (barring near lightspeed travel, cryogenic revival, or other technology— like cryptocurrency— which only exists in science fiction).

No new blocks means not only means no reward for mining but also no transactions. At some point in the next 80 years I fully expect that all nodes and miners will agree to not shoot themselves in the foot and render their own coins and mining equipment worthless by adopting the necessary change.

[figmentofmyass]

oh well, add another bug fix to the hard fork wishlist. https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Hardfork_Wishlist

we've got 80 years to sort this one out. i'll be dead by then.

There've already been two hard forks have there not? Both of them were to fix totally uncontested problems.

i'm not sure which forks you're referring to. the fork that fixed the 2010 overflow bug was a soft fork. so was the fork that fixed the 2018 inflation bug.

i remember peter todd saying that satoshi implemented at least one hard fork in the very early days (nobody realized it at the time), but it's certainly never happened in recent history.

this isn't so different than ethereum forking to delay the difficulty bomb. everyone on the network has incentive to fork together to fix it. one would hope that a simple bug fix would not be contentious, but i'm sure someone will create some drama over it.

[NeuroticFish]

In other words, at a block height roughly 86 years into the future, it will be impossible to produce any new blocks.

Then let the people discuss about this in some 80-85 years from now.
Until then there are plenty other important changes / improvements to be made for a better Bitcoin.

If newspapers bring up this problem because they don't have anything better to write about, should we really do the same?!

[gentlemand]

i'm not sure which forks you're referring to. the fork that fixed the 2010 overflow bug was a soft fork. so was the fork that fixed the 2018 inflation bug.

March 2013. I guess it's more of a rollback of an accidental hard fork that everyone agreed to reject. The principle is the same though. Everyone acted in unison to kill of a troublesome development.

[Mpamaegbu]

Isn't that like 86 whole creeping years from now?

Why worry now about a bug that is projected to come up more than four decades from now which may never even be a bug in the true sense. Also, the stretch in years is far apart that makes me wonder if anyone knew there was going to be something like Bitcoin or cryptocurrencies 80 years or so ago. My point is this — let's just take a chill pill and enjoy the moment of what Bitcoin is now.

[figmentofmyass]

i'm not sure which forks you're referring to. the fork that fixed the 2010 overflow bug was a soft fork. so was the fork that fixed the 2018 inflation bug.

March 2013. I guess it's more of a rollback of an accidental hard fork that everyone agreed to reject. The principle is the same though. Everyone acted in unison to kill of a troublesome development.

the overflow bug was not a hard fork. it was a perfectly valid part of the protocol that required new rules (a soft fork) to fix.

not everybody agreed either---enough users and miners just soft forked their nodes such that miners on the forked chain eventually overtook the original chain with proof of work. it was a chain split where the original branch was orphaned off and no longer exists, not a hard fork where everybody on the network upgraded protocol rules. as long as 51% of miners enforced the fork, people with old software remained on the correct chain.

an emergency soft fork is much easier since we just need 51% of miners to enforce it to prevent a chain split.

with a hard fork, a chain split is guaranteed. any node on the network that doesn't upgrade = chain split.

[MainIbem]

This is just to add to the fear people have about bitcoin. If hard fork can fix it, it therefore has no cause for alarm.

[Twinkledoe]

Wow we are only at 2020 and we are already thinking about the problem on 2106?
We are still facing so many tragic problems on this year I think we have plenty of time to fix this problem and focus on other more important things that matter right now.
I am not saying that it isn't important but to be honest I don't think we should really discuss it right now because it is still too early and besides 86 years from now do we even know if we are still alive at that time?

Most of us have long been gone on Earth at that moment. And more than likely, they already found or created a new technology. A decade alone will give us so many technological developments. And what we have now may be obsolete for the next 20 years. But right now, we need to face our problems  like how soon the covid vaccine will be available to public or is our family sufficient with food for the next 6 months or so?

[Wexnident]

That's like 80 years from now. I'd be dead by then, not that it matters. But I doubt miners would kill what they've been doing for at least the past decade due to some stupid argument. We might be from different countries and the like, but really, the fact that we're in the community means we acknowledge how Bitcoin works and that whenever the community needs to cooperate, they cooperate.

Let those people from then discuss it tbh. I'm pretty sure miners in the future would even be more willing due to them being influenced by the tech world upon being born after all. Ossified? I doubt that. More and more people would only join the community imo, especially since Bitcoin would have been well developed and adopted by then, hopefully.

[Insanerman]

This was personally very interesting for me since I had no idea that something like this might happen if change wasn't made on time , what are your thoughts on this ?

Can't the developers dump all old blocks? I don't know such development but if it would be possible, then why not? Also, thinking about 2106 or almost 86 years away from now is just funny and ridiculous. This year even had a lot of surprises from time to time, even had huge worldwide issues happening every month. Even the bitcoin itself is still being studied by some countries if they would legalize or not. And, some of aspiring cryptocurrencies are also promising and might defeat the Bitcoin's back-end system and it's "final block" death.

[pooya87]

this sounds very wrong to me:

The bug is simple. Bitcoin blocks are the containers within which transactions are stored. Each Bitcoin block has a number tracking how many blocks come before it. But because of a limitation revolving around how block height numbers are stored, Bitcoin will run out of block numbers after block number 5101541.

for starters bitcoin blocks do NOT store their height anywhere except a push of an integer to the stack inside their signature script (after activation of BIP-34) which can be as big as up to 4 bytes and can be as big as 2,147,483,647.
additionally Wuillies tweet doesn't even mention block height. it is talking about block timestamps that will overflow and although i am not sure about the details of that but i can tell it has nothing to do with height.

[YOSHIE]

- Bitcoin might die in the year 2106 because of a bug in the code that's been known since 2012

Come on friends, that's not the main goal of Bitcoin, crypto is very simple, nowadays it always uses technology for transactions via a decentralized blockchain that includes all networks, nothing can change and update forever, Bitcoin is not supervised, so nothing will die until years.......?.

With other reasons also quite reasonable, for example; as everyone knows Bitcoin has a locked system each individual in breaking the code "mining" for each individual can limit the supply that has been created 21 million, incentives for miners with a regulatory system for "mining" that occurs 4 years once, this is repeated and occurs, for that there is no such thing as dying in the future, except the world of doomsday.

[davis196]

OP,do you really think that Bitcoin Core/blockchain will remain static and not evolving for the next 86 years?
Bitcoin might be dead by 2106,but the cause of the destruction of BTC won't be the problem you mentioned.
There are way bigger threats that might destroy Bitcoin-quantum computers,government ban,The Apocalypse of human civilization,etc.
Maybe a cryptocurrency that's way better than Bitcoin will be invented by 2106.
Maybe cryptocurrencies might become obsolete by 2106?Who knows?

[rodskee]

Wow we are only at 2020 and we are already thinking about the problem on 2106?
We are still facing so many tragic problems on this year I think we have plenty of time to fix this problem and focus on other more important things that matter right now.
I am not saying that it isn't important but to be honest I don't think we should really discuss it right now because it is still too early and besides 86 years from now do we even know if we are still alive at that time?

Most of us have long been gone on Earth at that moment. And more than likely, they already found or created a new technology.

Funny but true, most of us are no longer exist on that day, and the chance that new
innovation will be implemented.

A decade alone will give us so many technological developments. And what we have now may be obsolete for the next 20 years.

That's how technology works, there's a continuous progress that will take place
along the way,
expect new approach will be there in terms of improvements and adjustments,

But right now, we need to face our problems  like how soon the covid vaccine will be available to public or is our family sufficient with food for the next 6 months or so?

I agree with you with this one, we are not sure how we can survive in the next following
months if there's no vaccine yet for this virus.

[DoubleEdgeEX]

When you think of what happened in the last 86 years and what mankind developed it´s highly unlikely that this will be a problem. A hardfork is just an option from todays point of view, but we can´t predict what technologies will arrive in the decades to come, not even speaking about quantum computing and all those other nice things. My prediction for 2106, Cryptos matured and are a part of everybodys daily life, people will have chip implants right after birth, Queen Elizabeth will still be alive somehow...

[piebeyb]

There is no problem that cannot be resolved, so don't worry about it, why say tens of years from now, why do you have to later if today it could die, you don't have to overdo it to analyze something that is not certain, bitcoin still looks fine even up to 2106

[Heart18]

Wow we are only at 2020 and we are already thinking about the problem on 2106?
We are still facing so many tragic problems on this year I think we have plenty of time to fix this problem and focus on other more important things that matter right now.
I am not saying that it isn't important but to be honest I don't think we should really discuss it right now because it is still too early and besides 86 years from now do we even know if we are still alive at that time?

You are very much right. We don't need to tackle this things right now as we have much necessary things to deal with. I think we need to focus now on how to survive in this crisis. The safety health protocols and other guidelines and of course, the most awaited vaccine that could possibly end this battle should be the first thing in mind. I can't figure out yet, if we are still alive on that year 2106 - too hard to predict what will happened next to us. But one thing is for sure, as long as bitcoin is existing, I can still earn and help my family through my hardworks in doing every tasks that I have here. And with that, I am forever grateful.

[MCobian]

No one can predict the future with accuracy, moreover predict Bitcoin in 80 years. I think it's too early to discuss regarding this matter,
after all, no one can confirm that Bitcoin dies in 2106. I myself still doubt that Bitcoin is possible will die due to a bug in the code in 2106.
It is even possible that Bitcoin will die before that, in my opinion it is more productive if we talk about the future of Bitcoin for the next 5 years.

[Artemis3]

Well it should be fixed. Carefully plan when how to execute it, and do it. No need to leave baggage to the future generations; "i won't be here" is no excuse for leaving unfixed things that could be fixed.

Or, do you think those Roman bridge builders though their creation should crumble by the time they died? Many are still in use today, couple thousand years later... And that was before modern construction techniques and materials (they did invent concrete, more or less).

There is time to plan it, but there is no reason to ignore it. Same as the quantum resistant changes.

[JuSayCo]

Well, as for me, this kind of problem will be easily fix on that year. You know why?Because  I strongly believe that most people on 2106 are more knowledgeable in IT thing. And probably the world then is highly digital.
But, seriously, nobody can guess what will happen 86 years from now. We don't know either if we will be spared from this covid-19 as positive cases got worsen everyday. We just  be thankful then, that we are still breathing, working and earning here in Cryptoworld or blockchain.

[maydna]

I think that will not be a problem because I am sure that the bitcoin developer will get the best solution to solve the problem. Besides that, 2106 is still far away, and we don't know if we are still alive or not, but we can tell our children or grandchild about that, so they will know what they need to do.

Even if bitcoin is dead by 2106, I am sure that we can have other things that can be the new ways, whether for making money or have an investment. Perhaps, we don't know what solution will be applied in the future because we have much time to research and check the code on how to fix the problem. So we'd better focus on the situations right now, and let the developer solve it while we can invite more people to join in the bitcoin world.

[royalfestus]

I think bitcoin had recovered from previous hardfork and i dont see any hardfork in bitcoin soon. All the hardfork had failed and this is a resounding warning to others who might want to go that path. 2106 is very far away and I dont think we need to be concern too much of that now, i trust the team behind this technology than any other.

[k@suy]

I think bitcoin had recovered from previous hardfork and i dont see any hardfork in bitcoin soon. All the hardfork had failed and this is a resounding warning to others who might want to go that path. 2106 is very far away and I dont think we need to be concern too much of that now, i trust the team behind this technology than any other.

Although what the poster said is just a prediction, still nobody knows if it will be happen someday or not but if you will ask me, I think if there is no cure for covid 19, covid 19 will be the reason of losing the bitcoin in the run that's why I am praying that somebody could find the cure in order for us to continie our normal daily living.

[budi691]

86 years is a long time, maybe some of us have been through it, 2009 to 2020 alone there are 2 hard forks to solve this problem, I'm sure we don't have to worry until 2106 is still very long, there must be lots of great people who are able to fix bug problems ,

[DougM]

this sounds very wrong to me:

The bug is simple. Bitcoin blocks are the containers within which transactions are stored. Each Bitcoin block has a number tracking how many blocks come before it. But because of a limitation revolving around how block height numbers are stored, Bitcoin will run out of block numbers after block number 5101541.

for starters bitcoin blocks do NOT store their height anywhere except a push of an integer to the stack inside their signature script (after activation of BIP-34) which can be as big as up to 4 bytes and can be as big as 2,147,483,647.
additionally Wuillies tweet doesn't even mention block height. it is talking about block timestamps that will overflow and although i am not sure about the details of that but i can tell it has nothing to do with height.

Yes, I was thinking the very same thing as pooya87...'height' or block number didn't exist until an non-critical field was added via BIP-34 starting at Block number 227,835 (timestamp 2013-03-24 15:49:13 GMT) which was last version 1 block.  Until that point the block height was simply derived by counting up from zero for the genesis block via the blockchain:  https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/BIP_0034

Specification
Treat transactions with a version greater than 1 as non-standard (official Satoshi client will not mine or relay them).
Add height as the first item in the coinbase transaction's scriptSig, and increase block version to 2. The format of the height is "serialized CScript" -- first byte is number of bytes in the number (will be 0x03 on main net for the next 150 or so years with 223-1 blocks), following bytes are little-endian representation of the number (including a sign bit). Height is the height of the mined block in the block chain, where the genesis block is height zero (0).

I can't find any historical discussion this topic. Can someone actually point out where this hard limit on the max block number is and why it would take a hard fork to actually fix it? 

[o_e_l_e_o]

which can be as big as up to 4 bytes and can be as big as 2,147,483,647.

Can someone actually point out where this hard limit on the max block number is and why it would take a hard fork to actually fix it?

Block headers contain the "Time" field, which is a 4 byte (32 bit) integer and represents the Unix time at which the block is being hashed, within the limit of the median time of the 11 previous blocks and the network adjusted time plus 2 hours.

When that 32 bit number hits capacity - which is actually double what pooya87 has said at 4,294,967,295 (I'll discuss why in a second) - then it will be impossible to hash a block which fulfills the criteria for an acceptable timestamp I laid out just above. As a result, all blocks will be rejected as invalid. This is a limit on time and will be hit on February 7th 2106, rather than a limit on block numbers.

The reason that the 32 bit number is double what pooya87 stated is because the timestamp is an unsigned integer ranging from 0 to 4,294,967,295, as opposed to a signed integer ranging from -2,147,483,647 to 2,147,483,647. It is essentially the Year 2038 problem, but offset by an additional 68 years. So instead of happening 68 years after 1970, bitcoin will be affected an additional 68 years later in 2106.

[kryptqnick]

In other words, at a block height roughly 86 years into the future, it will be impossible to produce any new blocks.

Then let the people discuss about this in some 80-85 years from now.
Until then there are plenty other important changes / improvements to be made for a better Bitcoin.

If newspapers bring up this problem because they don't have anything better to write about, should we really do the same?!

I did not know about this bug, but it sounds like something that requires a fix and is not likely to cause opposition. And indeed, if there's so much time until it becomes urgent, I realize why this issue is not being brought up: a hard fork like that will be largely supported when the time comes, but right now it just doesn't seem important enough. I think Bitcoin has to solve other issues or it will be pretty much dead way before 2106. For instance, the scalability issue is something that is going to prevent Bitcoin from becoming widely used as money since expensive and slow transactions won't suffice.

[cryptoperkele]

Honestly, we have no idea what kind of technical revolutions there will be in 2040 and this is easy to fix. And almost all in here will be dead by 2106 anyway so i don't think this
 should be a major concern us at all.

[khaled0111]

Well, this is an issue the next generations will have to fix supposing that bitcoin will still be used.
According to the linked article, all it requires to fix the bug is a hatd fork which is not really a big issue and am sure there will be many of them before we reach 2106.
I wonder if bitcoin devs will consider fixing this bug if a harfork will be required for another reason before that date?

[kezinaur14]

There is no problem that cannot be resolved, so don't worry about it, why say tens of years from now, why do you have to later if today it could die, you don't have to overdo it to analyze something that is not certain, bitcoin still looks fine even up to 2106

Yeah, sometimes the especulation game goes too far into irrelevancy, what does it matter what will it look in 100 years, as long as it isn't detrimental as a whole, I'm up for it man.

[pooya87]

a push of an integer to the stack inside their signature script (after activation of BIP-34) which can be as big as up to 4 bytes and can be as big as 2,147,483,647.

The reason that the 32 bit number is double what pooya87 stated is because the timestamp is an unsigned integer ranging from 0 to 4,294,967,295, as opposed to a signed integer ranging from -2,147,483,647 to 2,147,483,647. It is essentially the

you and i are talking about two entirely different things. the timestamp of a block is indeed a UInt32 and is actually interpreted as a Int64 as far as i can tell from the source code (and thanks for the explanation, i didn't know about the median time) but what i was talking about was the block height being pushed to the stack inside the signature script (ie. BIP-34). and positive numbers on the stack (that need to be popped and converted to integer) can not be bigger than Int32.Max value or 0x7fffffff because they can not be bigger than 4 bytes and if they set their highest bit (from 2147483648 to 4294967295) they become negative and that would be invalid as a block height.

[polarityexchange]

Given the sheer amount of time between now and then I guarantee this will have been fixed by then.

I certainly wont even be alive by then anyways

[dansus021]

oh well, add another bug fix to the hard fork wishlist. https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Hardfork_Wishlist

we've got 80 years to sort this one out. i'll be dead by then.

Surely does 


But yeah with bitcoin user today any fork will be notice mostl big exchange big miningpool will know it first because they have a team right. and the other hand maybe there's coin will replace the bitcoin by that time

[Nhor1011]

86 years is a long time, maybe some of us have been through it, 2009 to 2020 alone there are 2 hard forks to solve this problem, I'm sure we don't have to worry until 2106 is still very long, there must be lots of great people who are able to fix bug problems ,

We are already dead that time and if that problem in bitcoin will really exist then i think a new coming generation will solve that issue if they want bitcoin to continue alive and become useful in crypto planet for a long time.

[o_e_l_e_o]

you and i are talking about two entirely different things.

Yeah, my bad. I read your post earlier in the day on mobile, then came back later to write my post on desktop, and mashed it together in my head with my reply regarding timestamps which I had been thinking about.

(and thanks for the explanation, i didn't know about the median time)

Relevant code: https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/blob/b75f2ad72db6db93665c66279a4c9e8d5d89f027/src/validation.cpp#L3506-L3512

but what i was talking about was the block height being pushed to the stack inside the signature script (ie. BIP-34).

So, am I right in saying then that there is also a hard limit on block height, at 2,147,483,647? Some quick back-of-the-envelope math suggests that we will hit that limit somewhere around the year 42,906. Better start working on a fix ASAP.

[wxa7115]

Wow we are only at 2020 and we are already thinking about the problem on 2106?
We are still facing so many tragic problems on this year I think we have plenty of time to fix this problem and focus on other more important things that matter right now.
I am not saying that it isn't important but to be honest I don't think we should really discuss it right now because it is still too early and besides 86 years from now do we even know if we are still alive at that time?

That should show you how afraid people are of the technology that they are trying to look at anything that can make it fall, but as some people have stated before that is not really an issue, the developers at that time will fix it and we need to leave it to them because it doesn't really make a lot of sense to try to fix it now when we know what the problem is, how far away it is, and we have a lot of other things to concentrate on.

But you should not be surprised that those that hate bitcoin will use this as a way to try to show that if there is a bug like that in the code then some other things could have slipped in and that no one has found yet, obviously for us that notion is ridiculous but you can be sure they're going to try to use that to scare people away from this market.

[pooya87]

but what i was talking about was the block height being pushed to the stack inside the signature script (ie. BIP-34).

So, am I right in saying then that there is also a hard limit on block height, at 2,147,483,647? Some quick back-of-the-envelope math suggests that we will hit that limit somewhere around the year 42,906. Better start working on a fix ASAP.

yeah
the nHeight that is being pushed to the temporary script here to be compared with the coinbase script is of type Int32 so it is limited by that.
https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/blob/b75f2ad72db6db93665c66279a4c9e8d5d89f027/src/validation.cpp#L3554-L3561

[usekevin]

You mean, bitcoin will be no more after 86 years from now. Two things, I want to convey here. First, we don't know whether most of us will be alive till that year 
Secondly, every year, we will get a update of everything. For example mobile phone. We had received many updates every year in the mobile phone. So same we can expect on Bitcoin. Who know, bitcoin will be the Fiat of world.

[mezzaluna]

A really interesting topic :

Projected to happen in the year 2106, Bitcoin will suddenly stop running based on the code its network of users is running today. Users won’t be able to send bitcoin to others; miners securing Bitcoin’s global network will no longer serve a purpose. Bitcoin will just stop.

-Bitcoin might die in the year 2106 because of a bug in the code that's been known since 2012

Bitcoin core contributor stated how this has been known since 2012 might known even before it but it does have one simple solution.

Why do we assume so much that is so far into the future without having to consider what can happen within at least 5 years of being a user in the Cryptocurrency Industry. As far as I can see it, when I first learned about Cryptocurrency, not much have changed pertaining to the process of how transactions are being made and Bitcoin is still profitable as ever. If ever did that happen within close years because some users wont surely reach the year 2106, then at least we are in a generation of people who can say that they are veterans in the field of Cryptocurrency since we can teach them what its like in the early years of Crypto.

[Jet Cash]

I'll be 164 when this happens. Should I start to plan for this event now?

[tbterryboy]

In this kind of situation it’s the developers that we need to be talking to. If it’s possible to connect with them and discuss issues like this, they should be asked to look into it and do whatever is necessary to fix the bug. For some years now I have been seeing a lot of people talking about a bug in the Bitcoin’s code. Let’s just assume that the developers feel it’s not something they should be hurrying to fix since there is eighty years left before the deadline. If they don’t get the bug fixed and Bitcoin happens to die by then, then everything we have been fighting for wouldn’t be making any sense.

That should show you how afraid people are of the technology that they are trying to look at anything that can make it fall, but as some people have stated before that is not really an issue

Whether they are afraid of that or not, I don’t think it’s wrong to point out something bad that’s going to happen in the future if there are no actions taken to fix them. Imagine that those who discovered the bug decides to keep calm and say nothing about it, those developers in the future wouldn’t know about it and by the time they might get to realize it, it might be late to fix. It’s best that they are aware of it, at least they will be at alert.

[o_e_l_e_o]

In this kind of situation it’s the developers that we need to be talking to. If it’s possible to connect with them and discuss issues like this, they should be asked to look into it and do whatever is necessary to fix the bug.

The entire reason this spammy "article" was written was off the back of a tweet from Pieter Wuille, who has been developing and working on Bitcoin Core since 2011 and who has the third most commits to the repository on GitHub. The devs are well aware of this bug, and it will be fixed when necessary.

Imagine that those who discovered the bug decides to keep calm and say nothing about it, those developers in the future wouldn’t know about it and by the time they might get to realize it, it might be late to fix.

If a two-bit spam site like Coindesk is aware of a bug in bitcoin's code, you can bet every last satoshi you own that the devs have been aware of it for far longer.

[so98nn]

Sounds cool. May be this is an agenda that should be levied upon new generation who will have to figure out different ways to survive through stoppage of bitcoin.

What I learnt from the thread is bitcoin forking could be one of the way but in the past things have shown different times to us. Forking has troubled btc rather than giving us opportunities to invest and use them. Forks could be disastrous too.

I think developers could just add up more units of btc into the circulation by continuing the chain on another network. Something like BTC-2.0 or like that.

Now I’m not sure how it works, but I do know that current circulation is limited and that’s why the 86 years of timeline. But, why can’t we just go ahead with 2.0 version but it shouldn’t be fork.

[imstillthebest]

You mean, bitcoin will be no more after 86 years from now. Two things, I want to convey here. First, we don't know whether most of us will be alive till that year 
Secondly, every year, we will get a update of everything. For example mobile phone. We had received many updates every year in the mobile phone. So same we can expect on Bitcoin. Who know, bitcoin will be the Fiat of world.

and the updates can fix the previous known issue or it can make the issue more worst but lets hope it wont . 86 years from now we are going to be hapy if we reached that milestone  but all of us are gonna be old  by that year and wont know how to operate a btc  .

its okay if the bad prediction was true , for us but what about the younger generations ? we already have plans for them that we will inherit them our left btc's soon .

[erikoy]

You mean, bitcoin will be no more after 86 years from now. Two things, I want to convey here. First, we don't know whether most of us will be alive till that year 
Secondly, every year, we will get a update of everything. For example mobile phone. We had received many updates every year in the mobile phone. So same we can expect on Bitcoin. Who know, bitcoin will be the Fiat of world.

and the updates can fix the previous known issue or it can make the issue more worst but lets hope it wont . 86 years from now we are going to be hapy if we reached that milestone  but all of us are gonna be old  by that year and wont know how to operate a btc  .

its okay if the bad prediction was true , for us but what about the younger generations ? we already have plans for them that we will inherit them our left btc's soon .

Well, 86 years from now is still far and has a lot of things to happen and bitcoin could evolve when there will be supercomputera to be involve that could modify the blocks for bitcoin. As we all know that the bugs during 2012 was being fix in 2016 so this is already seen and there are preparations already for this in the coming years for modification of these blocks for bitcoin. Let us just trust this issue to the bitcoin developer. This issue can be solve by them and I believe in it.

[Yamifoud]

He is only over speculated of what will comes. He actually has no control over the future of crypto and so there is nothing it worries and makes believed of what the author says. But anyway, I'm not sure if we are still alive at that time to know what it happens maybe the author as well.

But for now, it kinda unthinkable to happens and for sure bugs could be fixed before that. It is in the hands of the next inherited Bitcoiner's and developers to fix that problem of either they let that thing to happen, that could possibly the end of bitcoin if not.

[pixie85]

Isn't that like 86 whole creeping years from now?

Why worry now about a bug that is projected to come up more than four decades from now which may never even be a bug in the true sense. Also, the stretch in years is far apart that makes me wonder if anyone knew there was going to be something like Bitcoin or cryptocurrencies 80 years or so ago. My point is this — let's just take a chill pill and enjoy the moment of what Bitcoin is now.

Pretty much why I don't care about topics like this one.

There are so many things that can go wrong in just 10 years that if you made a list of them and read it every morning you'd either go insane or stayed in bed all day doing nothing which would pretty much be like being insane

[Oilacris]

Wow we are only at 2020 and we are already thinking about the problem on 2106?
We are still facing so many tragic problems on this year I think we have plenty of time to fix this problem and focus on other more important things that matter right now.
I am not saying that it isn't important but to be honest I don't think we should really discuss it right now because it is still too early and besides 86 years from now do we even know if we are still alive at that time?

Nah, you cant stop people on making out such topics talking about on whats ahead or on what would happened in that year even we do know that we might be dead that time but for
learning purposes then these kind of questions are relevant.

When we do reach up that time or to next generation then the entire community and miners will surely do sort of things just to make Bitcoin to continue.Im not really that techy
when it comes to forks or whatsoever but we cant totally say that bitcoin would be dead in 2106.

[AmoreJaz]

Wow we are only at 2020 and we are already thinking about the problem on 2106?
We are still facing so many tragic problems on this year I think we have plenty of time to fix this problem and focus on other more important things that matter right now.
I am not saying that it isn't important but to be honest I don't think we should really discuss it right now because it is still too early and besides 86 years from now do we even know if we are still alive at that time?

Nah, you cant stop people on making out such topics talking about on whats ahead or on what would happened in that year even we do know that we might be dead that time but for
learning purposes then these kind of questions are relevant.

When we do reach up that time or to next generation then the entire community and miners will surely do sort of things just to make Bitcoin to continue.Im not really that techy
when it comes to forks or whatsoever but we cant totally say that bitcoin would be dead in 2106.

all we can get from this kind of discussion is just pure speculation and prediction of things what may happen. within that period, a lot of advancements and technological progress already happened and bitcoin may be obsolete at that time. and a new kind of super technology will be there, who knows? but would be interesting what kind of development we have in the next 50years? also, what kind of virus will people will experience at that time? covid will be also obsolete by then 

[Sadlife]

Bitcoin code based is scalable look at some second layer solutions, they modified few lines of code to make Blockchain transactions optimized, and the said bug is probably fix by now i mean after many years of being a core dev in Bitcoin that "simple bug" is probably fix by now. Perhaps, the only problem i see is when the supply is totally mined, in the future if Bitcoin encounters a major bug, and if all else fails they can just change protocol like ETH to ETH 2.0.

[minersday]

It is very baseless to conclude that Bitcoin will dead by 2106. What you need to know and understand is that bugs found in open source programs or codes can be easily fixed or solved. This is just a baseless speculation meant to get people discouraged from adopting to the use of Bitcoin. If the Bitcoin blockchain has bugs in it, we should have seen people complaining about it by now.  If Bitcoin was to die, it should have been in the early stage it was launched. Bitcoin has been around for 10 years now and you think its gonna die !!!

[wilkine]

Disagree. Everything is changing to be better

[DooMAD]

It is very baseless to conclude that Bitcoin will dead by 2106. What you need to know and understand is that bugs found in open source programs or codes can be easily fixed or solved.

Coding the fix is easy, yes.  The complication is the hard fork to implement the fix.  If we get that bit wrong, it could potentially split the network in two.  In theory, it should be a simple update which everyone chooses to follow without argument.  But theory sometimes goes out the window if anyone chooses to make things political or otherwise controversial.

And before saying how easy it will be to get people to run a fix which is obviously required, consider the following.  Because we want to have as few hardforks as possible, when one eventually does happen, devs will generally want to make the most of that opportunity and include multiple updates and fixes.  So it's likely more than one thing which users will need to reach consensus on.  They may all agree with the fix, but may disagree on whatever else might be included as part of the hardfork.

[minersday]

You mean, bitcoin will be no more after 86 years from now. Two things, I want to convey here. First, we don't know whether most of us will be alive till that year 

I believe this was what the writer was thinking about instead of the simple bug  

Secondly, every year, we will get a update of everything. For example mobile phone. We had received many updates every year in the mobile phone. So same we can expect on Bitcoin. Who know, bitcoin will be the Fiat of world.

I don't know why people always wanna make unnecessary  speculate about Bitcoin without giving realistic facts and information. People always wanna find fault or problem with any good thing in the world. If the centralized system with a lot of bugs as been able to exist for thousands of years, why can't a system with a 'simple bug' exist in peace ? Let's wait for 2106 to come and see if Bitcoin will actually die as predicted by people..

[minersday]

It is very baseless to conclude that Bitcoin will dead by 2106. What you need to know and understand is that bugs found in open source programs or codes can be easily fixed or solved.

Coding the fix is easy, yes.  The complication is the hard fork to implement the fix.  If we get that bit wrong, it could potentially split the network in two.  In theory, it should be a simple update which everyone chooses to follow without argument.  But theory sometimes goes out the window if anyone chooses to make things political or otherwise controversial.

And before saying how easy it will be to get people to run a fix which is obviously required, consider the following.  Because we want to have as few hardforks as possible, when one eventually does happen, devs will generally want to make the most of that opportunity and include multiple updates and fixes.  So it's likely more than one thing which users will need to reach consensus on.  They may all agree with the fix, but may disagree on whatever else might be included as part of the hardfork.

I actually get the whole idea of the hardfork but the possibility of the entire bitcoin blockchain network splitting in two is something I don't see it happening. The  Devs of the Bitcoin blockchain network will surely analyse and check for any thing that  might cause problems to the entire network causing a split.
I guess we just have to wait patiently to see if Bitcoin will meet its death in the year 2106. 

[Shasha80]

I am confident that Bitcoin developers can fix a bug in the code on the Bitcoin network and system. So whenever there is damage
to the Bitcoin network and system that could occur in the future, the Bitcoin developers team will find solution immediately and fix it.
So I don't believe the prediction Bitcoin will die in 2106.

[Debonaire217]

The dev of the bitcoin will solve that problem because I am sure they are still searching for the right method to fix it. Until that, I am sure that there will be many new developers who will help solve the bitcoin blockchain so that bitcoin will stay with us for a long time. But the problem is that all of us will not see what will happen in the future because that year will be too long for us to live. So we don't need to think more about that and let time will answer.

I'm not quite feels good in thinking about not caring for the future of bitcoin, but I do believe that as time passes by, developers could innovate bitcoin to the fullest. It is just that, if they could successfully modify bitcoin's blockchain, should we fear the reputation of bitcoin's volume to not be change from 21 million to any volume higher?

Just came out of my curious mind but if that is so, I am pretty sure that developers will respect this reputation, and on the otherhand, if the key is a hard fork, do we need to migrate all our bitcoins? they should establish a tool or application to convert our BTC equal to the new bitcoin in the future.

[Josefjix]

I am confident that Bitcoin developers can fix a bug in the code on the Bitcoin network and system. So whenever there is damage
to the Bitcoin network and system that could occur in the future, the Bitcoin developers team will find solution immediately and fix it.
So I don't believe the prediction Bitcoin will die in 2106.

Some of these kinds of news are just there to be a distracting factor as far as they've discovered the bud it would fixed in no time. Bitcoin wasn't developed to crash so;  it is stated here it isn't a big bug to fix.

The bug is simple. Bitcoin blocks are the containers within which transactions are stored. Each Bitcoin block has a number tracking how many blocks come before it. But because of a limitation revolving around how block height numbers are stored, Bitcoin will run out of block numbers after block number 5101541.

In other words, at a block height roughly 86 years into the future, it will be impossible to produce any new blocks.

[yohananaomi]

for me, it is okay to predict nothing that prohibits developing predictions, but whether the predictions are useful and acceptable with what will happen, it remains dependent on responding.
but for me there will be no change for bitcoin, because it was thought about it before bitcoin was created.
nothing that is impossible could happen but also could not be proven. the journey is still quite far and we will not know in 4 years later and do not overly predict who knows is still far away.

[Mpamaegbu]

Wow we at 2020 and you guys are already thinking of 2106 😂😂
None of us would be alive by then

Don't be hasty to conclude on that. There are teens here and if you add 86 to their years they could still be slightly above 100 years. People live up to that, you know. However, my point on the topic is "let's just take a chill pill and enjoy the moment of what Bitcoin is now. Let's live this moment first! Tomorrow will take care of itself. After all no one knew there would be a thing like Bitcoin in the 80s (even as close as it was to this era).

[yazher]

With lots of suggestions and tips posted in this community, I doubt that they cannot fix it by that time. I think they can just simply go here and ask certain problems with their nodes or the answer is always been here. the only thing they can do is follow the instructions given by the author. Of course, the author might already dead when that time comes. but his post will remain and thousand might benefits from it in the future. So our role can be just as easy as posting the solution before the problem would occur, as simple as that.

[rodskee]

for me, it is okay to predict nothing that prohibits developing predictions, but whether the predictions are useful and acceptable with what will happen, it remains dependent on responding.

It's depends from how the acceptance will push for sure in this kind of prediction there's solutions
That will answer this, technology will continue to grow.

but for me there will be no change for bitcoin, because it was thought about it before bitcoin was created.

The direction of bitcoin will continue to proceed, if there's errors or if there's things that needs to be fixed
developers are their to reconsider and adjust.

nothing that is impossible could happen but also could not be proven. the journey is still quite far and we will not know in 4 years later and do not overly predict who knows is still far away.

The journey still far indeed, we don't know what will be there for us for the next 10 years, believers
will continue to support and follow the development.

[DooMAD]

It is very baseless to conclude that Bitcoin will dead by 2106. What you need to know and understand is that bugs found in open source programs or codes can be easily fixed or solved.

Coding the fix is easy, yes.  The complication is the hard fork to implement the fix.  If we get that bit wrong, it could potentially split the network in two.  In theory, it should be a simple update which everyone chooses to follow without argument.  But theory sometimes goes out the window if anyone chooses to make things political or otherwise controversial.

And before saying how easy it will be to get people to run a fix which is obviously required, consider the following.  Because we want to have as few hardforks as possible, when one eventually does happen, devs will generally want to make the most of that opportunity and include multiple updates and fixes.  So it's likely more than one thing which users will need to reach consensus on.  They may all agree with the fix, but may disagree on whatever else might be included as part of the hardfork.

I actually get the whole idea of the hardfork but the possibility of the entire bitcoin blockchain network splitting in two is something I don't see it happening. The  Devs of the Bitcoin blockchain network will surely analyse and check for any thing that  might cause problems to the entire network causing a split.
I guess we just have to wait patiently to see if Bitcoin will meet its death in the year 2106.  

Devs aren't the only factor, though.  Users and miners have a strong influence too.  Developers did everything they could to avoid a split before, but there's still a BCH, a BSV and who-knows-how-many-other chains because some people didn't agree with a consensus rule change.

Say for example, one group of devs announce "here is our client with the bugfix, plus feature A and feature B".  It's possible another group of devs might say "we like feature A, but not feature B, so here is our client with the bugfix, plus feature A and feature C".  Suddenly, users have a choice to make about two clients with incompatible features.  If both clients prove to be equally popular, the chain splits in two.  If one client proves more popular than the other, the weaker chain may potentially die out.

It all depends what people choose to run and whether all the various devs agree with whatever features get included in the next hardfork.

[wxa7115]

That should show you how afraid people are of the technology that they are trying to look at anything that can make it fall, but as some people have stated before that is not really an issue

Whether they are afraid of that or not, I don’t think it’s wrong to point out something bad that’s going to happen in the future if there are no actions taken to fix them. Imagine that those who discovered the bug decides to keep calm and say nothing about it, those developers in the future wouldn’t know about it and by the time they might get to realize it, it might be late to fix. It’s best that they are aware of it, at least they will be at alert.

You will be right if this was a new bug and no one was aware of it but this is not really the case, the developers have known about this for a very long time and there is no reason to think that they could not fix it during the next years if that is what they wanted, but the date in which this will become a problem is so far away that there is no point in doing it now since they have so many other important things to do.

As such it is obvious that anyone that brings this point is doing so in bad faith and they want to scare people away from bitcoin, and we need to wonder why would anyone do that? And that is obviously because they are afraid of the potential that bitcoin has now and that it will have in the future.

[ilovealtcoins]

It is just a FUD, with no basis to assume that Bitcoin is dead. Bitcoin is open source and thousands of programmers around the world. The creator of bitcoin allowed these programmers to support and upgrade bitcoin on their own. There is also a community of people who want to own them. They are individual investors, investment funds. It doesn't matter if Bitcoin has 10 times or 100 more ford, because the only thing that exists is bitcoin.
Take a look at the charts, bitcoin is still owned by the user and the value of bitcoin is still increasing. Every day there are thousands of transactions on the bitcoin network. Additionally, Bitcoin has a Lighning upgrade that makes the bitcoin network burdened with other networks. It is resource sharing and it is beneficial for the user.

[DooMAD]

It is just a FUD, with no basis to assume that Bitcoin is dead. Bitcoin is open source and thousands of programmers around the world. The creator of bitcoin allowed these programmers to support and upgrade bitcoin on their own. There is also a community of people who want to own them. They are individual investors, investment funds. It doesn't matter if Bitcoin has 10 times or 100 more ford, because the only thing that exists is bitcoin.
Take a look at the charts, bitcoin is still owned by the user and the value of bitcoin is still increasing. Every day there are thousands of transactions on the bitcoin network.

I get the impression you haven't read the topic properly to fully understand the matter.  It's not FUD.  Bitcoin works perfectly fine for another ~85 years or so.  No issues at all.  But then, around 2106, if the bug isn't fixed, no one can send any further transactions.  It literally won't work anymore.  The blocks will be rejected.  Your charts don't fix that.  So all participants on the network, devs/nodes/miners, need to agree on how and when to fix the bug with a fork.  

[Bes19]

I am sure i'm already dead at that time and besides there is really no issue on that.
Bitcoin will definitely work perfectly even on that year.
Don't you think technology would be better on that year and new developers would not exist? i doubt.

[Alert31]

There is a lot of expert everywhere and i don't think that no one can solve that problem. And if ever the current generation could not fixed that problem,for sure there is ,from the coming generation. 2106 is too far from now, much more things can happen. We really don't know what the future of bitcoin will be,all we have is just a prediction.

[wxa7115]

Isn't that like 86 whole creeping years from now?

Why worry now about a bug that is projected to come up more than four decades from now which may never even be a bug in the true sense. Also, the stretch in years is far apart that makes me wonder if anyone knew there was going to be something like Bitcoin or cryptocurrencies 80 years or so ago. My point is this — let's just take a chill pill and enjoy the moment of what Bitcoin is now.

I think this problem should be resolved because it will change the mindset of people who are just starting to invest in cryptocurrencies. beginners will stop investing, trading and mining because they are afraid that someday their coins will suddenly become worthless.

I do not really think that is going to be a factor at all except as FUD, even if you are relatively young right now that date is 86 years away from the current date, most people in the forum will not be alive by then, we do not even know if this forum is still going to exist at that point in time and the same can be said about bitcoin, there is no point in trying to solve the problem right now because it is not something that is imminent.

What it needs to be done is to find a way to make people understand that the fiat currencies that they are holding are a fraud and they will eventually lose the time and all the hard work that they put into earning that fiat currency.

[The cure]

Maybe we should not think that right now, first of all 86 years from now we are not sure if we are still alive, maybe most of us are already weak by that time. Let's just enjoy the benefits of bitcoin and how we can use it for the development of our lives. If the time comes when 2106 is near and bitcoin continues to grow, surely the new generation have the knowledge of everything to fix that problem.

[mandor]

Maybe we should not think that right now, first of all 86 years from now we are not sure if we are still alive, maybe most of us are already weak by that time. Let's just enjoy the benefits of bitcoin and how we can use it for the development of our lives. If the time comes when 2106 is near and bitcoin continues to grow, surely the new generation have the knowledge of everything to fix that problem.

good answer, we don't have to think about what will happen in the future and who will fix that's problem. as long as we are still alive in this era and we can still enjoy the benefits of Bitcoin then using it for the benefit or good. of course the new generation that will go ahead and fix all the problems regarding the Hard fork or Bitcoin Bug in the future. so we don't need to worry and for now we will enjoy our time with Bitcoin as long as we are alive.

[mersal]

Maybe we should not think that right now, first of all 86 years from now we are not sure if we are still alive, maybe most of us are already weak by that time. Let's just enjoy the benefits of bitcoin and how we can use it for the development of our lives. If the time comes when 2106 is near and bitcoin continues to grow, surely the new generation have the knowledge of everything to fix that problem.

If you are a bit coin maximalist then you should care about it even if you are not going to live by that year, if there is a bug then it won't be accepted by most of the people then it won't going to be a main stream payment of this world.But as far as I understand this is not really a big issue, the miner needs to update so they won't get excluded from the network and its pretty simple though.