Nostr Web Client

Some Bitcoin History...

On this day in 2013, an undiscovered discrepancy between the Bitcoin 0.7 and recently released 0.8 client versions caused an unintentional hard fork (a network split).

After a storm of discussion and organizing by developers, the community, services, and miners, a consensus on downgrading nodes to 0.7 was reached and over nearly 6 hours the dominant hash power migrated back to the 0.7 chain.

After reaching a peak of 8 blocks ahead of the other chain, the forked chain finally fell behind the 0.7 version and 24 blocks were orphaned at once from the forked chain, marking when all of the software across the entire Bitcoin ecosystem fell back into consensus.

What I'm doing today:

• I'm taking at least 24 minutes out of the day to review some bitcoin code, and/or learn at least one new thing about Bitcoin code and how it works. The more eyes and expertise we have in the ecosystem, the stronger and more resilient Bitcoin is.

Wild to have lived through this little part of Bitcoins life.

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Discussion

Jon 9mo ago

Only 24minutes?

Guy Swann 9mo ago

You can do for 24 hours if you like 🤣

But I figured 24 minutes was short enough that it was easy to commit to for people with a busy day. And they learn at least one new thing about Bitcoin

Jon 9mo ago

I just thought code is complex and 24minutes isn't going to help much.

Would love to hear what you've learned!

Jeroen Ubbink 9mo ago

This was when a lot of communication still went through irc on the most terrible but humbling irc network that ever existed.

2140 AD 9mo ago

Is a hard fork going to be needed for the quantum-proof encryption upgrade?

Guy Swann 9mo ago

Not necessarily. Could be done purely through signature change, which thanks to Segwit can be done via soft fork.

2140 AD 9mo ago

Let's hope this soft fork comes faster than the north koreans

Abstract Equilibrium 9mo ago

This event was arguably the bitcoin networks biggest & most dangerous test. It's absolutely wild in hindsight that we sidestepped that fork, but we were pretty much all in sync recognizing that this would mean the failure of the whole project, maybe for ever. There just weren't enough troublemakers in the space yet.

Guy Swann 9mo ago

I think it was a major thing that set the precedent for the Blocksize War and recognizing how much to value the consensus over an arbitrary change.

Without this, I wonder if it had gone the same way in 2017

Don Dahir 9mo ago

Very interesting

Kush 9mo ago

Massive share G. Respect