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