Bitcoin Developers Reveal Critical Bugs Hidden for Years in Core Software

• Bitcoin developers discovered a major bug in the source code, but this is no longer a threat.
• With developers and node operators running smoothly after upgrades, a BTC price rebound is imminent.

Senior Bitcoin (BTC) developers have finally disclosed critical Core software bugs hidden for years. These developers have kept patched security holes that prevented hackers from exploiting those vulnerabilities under wraps for years until now.

Bitcoin Core 0.21.0 Unveiled

As a reminder, Aaron van Wirdum announced the release of Bitcoin Core 0.21.0, a major upgrade of Bitcoin Core software on July 14, 2021. The upgrade enabled several positive features and patched major bugs that could have allowed hackers to steal Bitcoin.

Spearheaded by Bitcoin lead maintainer and Satoshi Nakamoto’s second successor, Wladimir van der Laan, the software release merged over 600 pull requests into production. In the weeks following, Bitcoin miners and node operators manually upgraded their full nodes.

It has been three and a half years since developers recommended the 0.21.0 node operators and Core 27.1 is the current version in operation. While most node operators upgraded to 0.21.0 or higher, developers stayed quiet to prevent hackers from exploiting security vulnerabilities.

Presently, Core versions like 21.0 and prior are considered ‘end of life’ in developer-speak. This means they no longer require maintenance and are less important to node operators. According to the Clark Moody Bitcoin dashboard, over 90% of Bitcoin nodes run software version 0.21.1 or higher. However, over 400 accessible nodes running version 0.21.1 have refused to upgrade for years.

While this is happening, many Bitcoin Core developers have accepted a new policy to disclose security issues. In early June, many agreed that it was okay to disclose security issues that have been addressed for at least one and a half years. They are starting purposefully, with this week’s disclosure of major issues impacting versions 20 and below.

The Discovered Mistakes and Patches

Approximately 426 nodes reachable today on the public Bitcoin network are now being addressed by this disclosure. So far, ten mistakes have been admitted by the Bitcoin Core developers. 

They include; Remote code execution due to bug in miniupnpc, patched with Core 0.12, and node crash denial-of-service from multiple peers with large messages. Others are, censorship of unconfirmed transactions, patched with Core 0.21.0, and unbound ban list CPU/memory denial-of-service, patched with Core 0.20.1.

As noted in our earlier report, developers have also begun driving forward the notion of enhanced programmability on the Bitcoin blockchain. This initiative seeks to equip Bitcoin with characteristics commonly associated with Ethereum like smart contracts and an innovative platform for Decentralized Applications (DApps).

Bitcoin Recovers Slightly

Amid these developments, BTC has recovered slightly from a recent downturn in the crypto market as showcased by the extreme fear highlighted in our earlier report. As of this writing, BTC experienced a 2.3% increase in the past 24 hours, with the price set at $58,529. However, the trading volume experienced a decline of 22.13% to $21.5 billion.

Analysts claim Bitcoin is on the verge of a major rally due to its current trends. As discussed in our earlier report, a crypto analyst on X platform alias TechDev points to a similar fractal pattern to the 2017 bull cycle.