NEWS
NEWS
NEWS
Bitcoin standard update causes problems with miners, generation of invalid Bitcoins
An upgrade to Bitcoin standards over the weekend has caused a glitch among Bitcoin miners resulting in the creation of invalid Bitcoins.
In a post at Bitcoin.org, the problem was explained as being due to a problem that affects Bitcoin mining clients that haven’t been updated, with the flow on effect being that those un-updated clients are “currently vulnerable to double-spending of confirmed transactions,” and making matters worse, “Almost all software (besides Bitcoin Core 0.9.5 and later) will accept these invalid blocks under certain conditions.”
“All software that assumes blocks are valid (because invalid blocks cost miners money) is at risk of showing transactions as confirmed when they really aren’t,” the post continues, before adding “This particularly affects lightweight (SPV) wallets and software such as old versions of Bitcoin Core which have been downgraded to SPV-level security by the new BIP66 consensus rules.”
Further, the post explained that the fix is for all miners off of Simplified Payment Verification (SPV) mining as “lightweight (SPV) wallets are not safe for less than 30 confirmations until all the major pools switch to full validation.”
In addition, since web wallets run varying infrastructure, “unless you know for sure that they use Bitcoin Core 0.9.5 or later for full validation, you should assume they have the same security as the lightweight wallets.”
The problem does not extend to everyday, regular Bitcoin users, who remain completely fine to buy, sell and purchase goods in Bitcoin.
Ghosts in the machine
While not affecting general Bitcoin transactions, the change is a wake up call for Bitcoin miners who, despite adverse conditions surrounding mining given the current exchange rate of Bitcoin, continue to slug on and mine away in a good fight against the flawed notion of fiat currency.
The good news is that it’s not the end of the Bitcoin world, and according to various reports miners are updating to fix the issue, but it is a wake up call that there is always the potential for their to be ghosts in the machine.
Over its history Bitcoin has been remarkably resilient, and this is but a minor hiccup along the road, which let’s face it, anything and everything suffers from at least at some stage.
Image credit: glencooper/Flickr/CC by 2.0
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