What if There's a Bug No One Has Seen in Bitcoin?

[kryptqnick]

Why is the world so sure that Bitcoin and blockchain is foolproof. What if there's a critical flaw that everyone has overlooked or not noticed and the whole system crashes down? Is it really impossible? Is Bitcoin a perfect machine or system?

As others pointed out, the strength of trust in Bitcoin is largely because it's open-source. Anyone who wants to check the code and understands the code can do it and report bugs if they are found. Bitcoin exists for a while and has a big community of people. Not to mention that there are of course plenty of people who'd want to exploit a bug in Bitcoin. So with that in mind, it's very unlikely that there is some sort of critical bug that nobody noticed before. There were times when serious bugs got reported, but they were caught early, so to speak, without being successfully exploited AFAIK.

[ABCbits]

What if there's a critical flaw that everyone has overlooked or not noticed and the whole system crashes down?

There are multiple software which can be used to run full node, so it's hard to imagine all of them have same overlooked flaw. Even if soemone manage to exploit bug on Bitcoin Core (most popular full node), i don't expect whole Bitcoin network crash or going down. I expect there'll some node and miner remain running, where i expect some congestion and many services going down for a while.

[goldkingcoiner]

Why is the world so sure that Bitcoin and blockchain is foolproof. What if there's a critical flaw that everyone has overlooked or not noticed and the whole system crashes down? Is it really impossible? Is Bitcoin a perfect machine or system?

What if tomorrow a virus breaks out and kills all of humanity before we can discover a vaccine or a cure?

Anything is possible, is what I mean to say. But is it probable? No.

Same goes for Bitcoin. At this point, the probability of somebody finding a critical flaw in Bitcoin is almost non-existent. So there is no point in worrying about it.

[franky1]

already a bug
nodes bypass verifying every byte which lets arbitrary data to bloat a block
this bug has been known since 2016 even before it became active(2017)
many have noted the error and how it negatively could affect the bloockchain and negatively impact things like transaction counts per block and fee and congestion.. yet devs were sponsored to force it into being active as it helps the sponsors promote that bitcoiners should avoid using bitcoin and instead move to other networks to transact

[crptm]

While Bitcoin and blockchain technology are often touted as secure and reliable, claiming they are completely fool proof would be an overstatement. No system, no matter how well designed, is perfect. The technology behind Bitcoin uses some complex security methods which make it really strong. However, there’s always a chance that something might go wrong that we haven’t seen yet. The technology is robust, but the Bitcoin community remains vigilant, continuously improving and adapting the system to address potential vulnerabilities as they arise.

Well, I personally feel Bitcoin is impressive, but it’s not flawless. It’s still being improved over time, just like any other technology.

[mpoletiek]

While Bitcoin and blockchain technology are often touted as secure and reliable, claiming they are completely fool proof would be an overstatement. No system, no matter how well designed, is perfect. The technology behind Bitcoin uses some complex security methods which make it really strong. However, there’s always a chance that something might go wrong that we haven’t seen yet. The technology is robust, but the Bitcoin community remains vigilant, continuously improving and adapting the system to address potential vulnerabilities as they arise.

Well, I personally feel Bitcoin is impressive, but it’s not flawless. It’s still being improved over time, just like any other technology.

Do we really see continuous improvement in BTC?

Feels like updates are few and far between.

[tread93]

Why is the world so sure that Bitcoin and blockchain is foolproof. What if there's a critical flaw that everyone has overlooked or not noticed and the whole system crashes down? Is it really impossible? Is Bitcoin a perfect machine or system?

The only bugs in bitcoin are the people buggin for bitcoin! HA! Every year they come up with new ways to increase the network security and functionality through new protocols such as tap root, ordinals, etc. It is definitely striving for perfection! I wouldn't say perfect tho.

[mpoletiek]

Wake me up when most of the TX's are non-custodial again.

[Z-tight]

Wake me up when most of the TX's are non-custodial again.

What do you mean by 'non-custodial tx's'? People use custodial wallets, but that is not the fault of the network, it is free and anyone can do what they like, even if it is not recommended. If you use a self custodial wallet, you create the tx yourself, manually set its fee rate and broadcast it to the network, for nodes to validate it and miners to confirm it in a block, and that is what many bitcoiners do.

[ranochigo]

Do we really see continuous improvement in BTC?

Feels like updates are few and far between.

Major overhaul takes months or years to materialize. The different improvements that you see in the protocol often comes in the form of a proposal (BIP) first before it gets tested and merged. This is a slow process because we cannot force everyone to upgrade and we would have to ensure that its implementation makes sense in the grand scheme of things.

Between releases, optimizations and bug fixes forms the majority of the changes. You would be able to find these in the changelog. I personally am against a fast tracked development scheme unless it is mandatory.

[doomloop]

Major overhaul takes months or years to materialize. The different improvements that you see in the protocol often comes in the form of a proposal (BIP) first before it gets tested and merged. This is a slow process because we cannot force everyone to upgrade and we would have to ensure that its implementation makes sense in the grand scheme of things.

Between releases, optimizations and bug fixes forms the majority of the changes. You would be able to find these in the changelog. I personally am against a fast tracked development scheme unless it is mandatory.

Major haul says it all. They can be a bunch of really good updates or improvements, so let's expect that they will take a long time for them to get deployed in the system but all waiting is definitely going to be worth it. Even though an upgrade sounds innovative, indeed that there are still people who like the old school or traditional stuffs and it might take a long time for us to convinced these people to join the revolution but if they do so, at least they change their minds and that's fine that if there are no unity in the community.

The different improvements that you see in the protocol often comes in the form of a proposal (BIP) first before it gets tested and merged.

Apart from what I've said earlier, this is another factor on why we can expect a long delay. Bitcoin is truly interesting isn't it? Bitcoin is a form of money, so it's important that things will get polished because we don't want to lose our funds easily.

I personally am against a fast tracked development scheme unless it is mandatory.

Fast or slow, we can't do much anything about it but the decision will still depend on the project owners, though that's true that mandatory updates are always going to be instant. They don't need to ask for a second opinion anymore from the public because if they will wait any longer, that can cause more damage in the project. I'm sure we don't want that to happen too if we are also supporting them.