What if there is a bug in Bitcoin's code? Well, exactly 12 years ago, a bug was discovered!
At the end of March 11, 2013, a Bitcoin miner running version 0.8 created a large block (at height 225,430) that was incompatible with earlier versions of Bitcoin.
This caused a fork in the Bitcoin network and resulted in two separate blockchains. In the early hours of the following day, the developer community identified the problem: on February 19th of that same year, version 0.8 of the code had been released.
This version included a change in the database system that allowed a greater volume of transactions in each block, which the previous version 0.7 did not support. With the recent increase in transaction volume on the Bitcoin network, some blocks exceeded this limit and were rejected by nodes running version 0.7 but accepted by version 0.8, creating two incompatible blockchains.
Pieter Wuille announced that after discussions, the community recognized that the least risky path was to continue with the old chain.
The correction plan included several actions: miners needed to stop using version 0.8 and return to version 0.7, and nodes that had updated to the latest version needed to revert to the previous version.
Another recommendation was for merchants to stop accepting Bitcoin payments temporarily to avoid the risk of accepting transactions on the new chain, which would be discarded if the plan succeeded.
The plan worked, and 24 blocks later, the old chain had become the longest chain again.
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