Bitcoin Dev Archive Topics

Chain splits and consensus bugs

The times the network disagreed with itself: the 2010 value overflow, the March 2013 split between Berkeley DB and LevelDB nodes, the 2015 SPV mining fork and the 2018 inflation bug. The threads written during each incident are here, with the post-mortems.

78 threads and 906 messages, 23 Jun 2011 to 4 Oct 2026.

Read on LearnBitcoin

BIPs

BIP 50

Bitcoin Optech

CVE 2018 17144

The threads, in order

Listed by the date of each thread's first message.

2011 3 threads

23 Jun 2011
Speeding up "getbalance <account>" calls Jan Vornberger
4 messages
10 Aug 2011
Roadmap/schedules Gavin Andresen
8 messages
24 Aug 2011
New standard transaction types: time to schedule a blockchain split? Gavin Andresen
34 messages

2012 2 threads

24 Feb 2012
Building BDB on MingW Amir Taaki
4 messages
18 Jun 2012
LevelDB benchmarking Mike Hearn
12 messages

2013 3 threads

13 Mar 2013
On fork awareness Was: 0.8.1 ideas Greg Maxwell
1 message
16 Aug 2013
LevelDB in master Luke Dashjr
3 messages
17 Sep 2013
Faster databases than LevelDB Mike Hearn
6 messages

2014 2 threads

1 Aug 2014
deterministic transaction expiration Kaz Wesley
34 messages
27 Nov 2014
BIP 65 and OP_CHECKLOCKTIMEVERIFY inquiry... Richard Moore
5 messages

2015 7 threads

11 May 2015
Reducing the block rate instead of increasing the maximum block size Sergio Lerner
10 messages
25 May 2015
alternatives to the 20MB block limit, measure first! Ron
1 message
4 Jul 2015
Fork of invalid blocks due to BIP66 violations Raystonn .
17 messages
4 Jul 2015
July 4th 2015 invalid block fork postmortem BIP number request Greg Maxwell
1 message
11 Jul 2015
SPV Mining reveals a problematic incentive issue. Nathan Wilcox
13 messages
28 Jul 2015
Disclosure: consensus bug indirectly solved by BIP66 Pieter Wuille
4 messages
17 Aug 2015
Miners are struggling with blocks far smaller than 750KB blocks and resorting to SPV mining Luv Khemani
5 messages

2016 3 threads

23 Sep 2016
BIP draft: OP_CHECKBLOCKATHEIGHT Luke Dashjr
14 messages
14 Nov 2016
Buried Deployments Suhas Daftuar
24 messages
17 Nov 2016
BIP30 and BIP34 interaction (was Re: [BIP Proposal] Buried Deployments) Jorge Timón
19 messages

2017 12 threads

23 Mar 2017
Issolated Bitcoin Nodes Juan Garavaglia
7 messages
25 Mar 2017
Strong Anti-Replay via Coinbase Transactions Cameron Garnham
2 messages
6 Apr 2017
Using a storage engine without UTXO-index Tomas
35 messages
11 May 2017
BIP proposal: NODE_NETWORK_LIMITED service bits Jonas Schnelli
7 messages
22 May 2017
Drivechain -- Request for Discussion Paul Sztorc
44 messages
29 May 2017
Compatibility-Oriented Omnibus Proposal CalvinRechner
8 messages
7 Jun 2017
User Activated Soft Fork Split Protection James Hilliard
29 messages
9 Jun 2017
The BIP148 chain split may be inevitable Jacob Eliosoff
6 messages
28 Jun 2017
BIP: OP_BRIBVERIFY - the op code needed for Blind Merge Mined drivechains Chris Stewart
25 messages
5 Sep 2017
Sidechain headers on mainchain (unification of drivechains and spv proofs) ZmnSCPxj
8 messages
13 Sep 2017
Minutia in CT for Bitcoin. Was: SF proposal: prohibit unspendable outputs with amount=0 Gregory Maxwell
2 messages
20 Nov 2017
Why SegWit Anyway? Praveen Baratam
10 messages

2018 6 threads

15 Jan 2018
Proposal to reduce mining power bill Enrique Arizón Benito
6 messages
12 Feb 2018
Revisiting BIP 125 RBF policy. Russell O'Connor
18 messages
14 Feb 2018
Amend the BIP 123 process to include buried deployments Marco Falke
6 messages
19 Sep 2018
Bitcoin Core update notice Pieter Wuille
4 messages
22 Sep 2018
On the initial notice of CVE-2018-17144 Bryan Bishop
3 messages
26 Sep 2018
CVE-2018-17144 disclosure (inflation vulnerability) (copy-paste) Bryan Bishop
1 message

2019 4 threads

8 Mar 2019
Signet Karl-Johan Alm
11 messages
10 May 2019
SIGHASH_ANYPREVOUT proposal Anthony Towns
4 messages
31 Jul 2019
Add a moving checkpoint to the Bitcoin protocol Kenshiro []
10 messages
26 Dec 2019
Blind Merged Mining with covenants ( sighash_anyprevout / op_ctv ) Ruben Somsen
3 messages

2020 3 threads

31 Jan 2020
Purge attacks (spin on sabotage attacks) ha su
8 messages
1 Aug 2020
Smaller Transactions with PubRef Mike Brooks
4 messages
24 Sep 2020
Floating-Point Nakamoto Consensus Mike Brooks
23 messages

2021 12 threads

17 Feb 2021
Yesterday's Taproot activation meeting on lockinontimeout (LOT) Michael Folkson
42 messages
25 Feb 2021
Exploring alternative activation mechanisms: decreasing threshold Gregorio Guidi
7 messages
28 Feb 2021
Straight Flag Day (Height) Taproot Activation Matt Corallo
15 messages
28 Feb 2021
LOT=False is dangerous and shouldn't be used Luke Dashjr
9 messages
1 Mar 2021
UASF (LOT=true) kick off meeting - Tuesday March 2nd 19:00 UTC on ##uasf IRC channel Michael Folkson
5 messages
24 Mar 2021
March 23rd 2021 Taproot Activation Meeting Notes Jeremy Rubin
13 messages
25 Mar 2021
Response to Rusty Russell from Github Jeremy Rubin
3 messages
10 Jun 2021
OP_BEFOREBLOCKVERIFY - discussing and opcode that invalidates a spend path after a certain block Billy Tetrud
11 messages
26 Jun 2021
Trinary Version Signaling for softfork upgrades Billy Tetrud
20 messages
27 Jun 2021
Trinary Version Signaling for softfork Prayank
7 messages
7 Sep 2021
Reorgs on SigNet - Looking for feedback on approach and parameters 0xB10C
18 messages
31 Dec 2021
Covenants and capabilities in the UTXO model Bram Cohen
8 messages

2022 9 threads

18 Jan 2022
CTV BIP review Luke Dashjr
12 messages
10 Feb 2022
Thoughts on fee bumping James O'Beirne
26 messages
4 Mar 2022
One testnet to rule them all vjudeu
4 messages
22 Mar 2022
Beyond Jets: Microcode: Consensus-Critical Jets Without Softforks ZmnSCPxj
8 messages
19 Apr 2022
7 Theses on a next step for BIP-119 Jeremy Rubin
11 messages
22 Apr 2022
What to expect in the next few weeks Michael Folkson
13 messages
30 Apr 2022
What to do when contentious soft fork activations are attempted Michael Folkson
10 messages
16 Sep 2022
bitcoin-inquistion: evaluating soft forks on signet Anthony Towns
15 messages
10 Dec 2022
Rethinking “Incentive Compatibility” Within the Bitcoin Protocol John Carvalho
5 messages

2023 5 threads

1 Mar 2023
Minimum fees Giuseppe B
8 messages
22 May 2023
Ark: An Alternative Privacy-preserving Second Layer Solution Burak Keceli
18 messages
31 Aug 2023
Compressed Bitcoin Transactions Tom Briar
16 messages
14 Dec 2023
Scaling Lightning Safely With Feerate-Dependent Timelocks jlspc
13 messages
20 Dec 2023
Swift Activation - CTV alicexbt
14 messages

2025 5 threads

18 Mar 2025
Unbreaking testnet4 Antoine Poinsot
35 messages
27 Apr 2025
The Tragic Tale of BIP30 Ruben Somsen
13 messages
28 Apr 2025
Removing checkpoints in Bitcoin Core v30 Sjors Provoost
3 messages
27 Sep 2025
A Bitcoin Scripting Proposal BIP Quartet Rusty Russell
10 messages
16 Nov 2025
Improve Bitcoin’s resilience to large-scale power grid failures and Carrington-type solar storms Alexandre
2 messages

2026 2 threads

12 Jul 2026
The game-theory problems of PQ sunsetting modes Antoine Riard
4 messages
20 Aug 2026
DropKick ⚽️ - A minimal commit/reveal PQ rescue protocol conduition
5 messages