The funny thing is, Bitcoin isn't the only cryptocurrency that has been affected by so-called inflation bugs. Numerous other cryptocurrencies, including some prominent ones have been exploited in this way.
Back in February, Zcash disclosed that it had secretly patched an inflation bug in 2018 that could have crippled the blockchain. Similarly, Zcoin, SmartCash, Zoin and a few others had a bug that could have toppled them, but managed to patch them and survive.
Let's hope nobody discovers an exploitable inflation bug in Monero's code, since that could cause some serious issues.
Topic: How someones made 184 Billion Bitcoin appear out of nowhere - page 2. (Read 846 times)
I am genuinely interested on how this will be handled, if something like that happened now. 
There are a lot more transactions being done now and
I wonder if miners would all work together to "rewind" the Blockchain, if it happened again. I think it is in everyone's interest to do this again, because
losing a few coins with a "rewind" is better than losing the value of every other coin you own, if miners did not want to participate. Fortunately for us, a
lot more eyes are currently on the Open source code and also on what is happening on the Blockchain, so it will even be spotted a lot quicker now.
There are a lot more transactions being done now andI wonder if miners would all work together to "rewind" the Blockchain, if it happened again. I think it is in everyone's interest to do this again, because
losing a few coins with a "rewind" is better than losing the value of every other coin you own, if miners did not want to participate. Fortunately for us, a
lot more eyes are currently on the Open source code and also on what is happening on the Blockchain, so it will even be spotted a lot quicker now.
The hacker recognized a flaw in the early Bitcoin blockchain system: While there was a fixed maximum supply of 21 million Bitcoin, the code for checking Bitoin transactions did not work if the outputs were large enough to cause them to overflow (hence the Value Overflow Incident). The hacker, with one transaction, managed to create 8,784x the number of Bitcoin (BTC) that should never have existed.
Do you know that one of the major factor of bitcoin price rise is its limited supply. If for any reason (its impossible todate) the supply of bitcoins get increased, the price will shoot down to the floor. Fortunely there is no more flaw in bitcoin block-chain and everything is smooth and the people confidence is intact.
Good info. But it's a completely plagiarized text from the cryptoninja website. Not a single word or link added or deducted by the OP. OP's almost every post are just a copy paste from different websites.
didn't know once upon a time there was an incident like this that had happened. if the hacker sold the 184B BTC even just for few cents during that time he still can come up with huge amount of profit from his work. it would have been very disastrous for everyone if it happens these days, some people today already depend to crypto industry and if all of a sudden crashes lives will also be broken. its a good thing that was solved and the hacker had seen that hole long time ago.
Excellent infobit that I had never heard about. Well deserving of Merit given.
This was actually one of the lesser known incidents for bitcoin that hasn't been discussed for ages and is a nice bit of information that during the early days, nothing was perfect but everyone involved strived to get a fix as soon as possible. I've read the original thread years before this has been brought up again (thanks to @o_e_l_e_o for bringing up the original link to the discussion) and it fascinates me the coordination in between different devs and community members all at once, and fixed the problem in less than ~12 hours.
Are there any reference of this event here in bitcointalk forum? Something written by Satoshi?
Yes.The incident was initially spotted and flagged up by Jeff Garzik here: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/strange-block-74638-822
The main thread in Development & Technical Discussion is here: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/overflow-bug-serious-823
It actually seems like Gavin Andresen wrote a temporary fix first, before satoshi wrote a permanent fix about 20 minutes later.
satoshi then released this as version 0.3.10 a few hours later: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/version-0310-block-74638-overflow-patch-827
I didn't know about this history.
Are there any reference of this event here in bitcointalk forum? Something written by Satoshi?
That hacker is not so evil. He exposed the bug in a time when things could be easily fixed. Thank God that happened long ago, and not recently.
Are there any reference of this event here in bitcointalk forum? Something written by Satoshi?
That hacker is not so evil. He exposed the bug in a time when things could be easily fixed. Thank God that happened long ago, and not recently.
If you’re at all familiar with the history of Bitcoin, you’ll probably know a little something about the Value Overflow Incident - also known as the moment that nearly destroyed Bitcoin. But how did this incident actually come about, and what would have happened if it wasn’t stopped? Stick around as we dive deeper into this controversial moment in crypto history - the moment that could have dismantled the entire cryptocurrency industry in one go. Let’s look into how someone made 184.4 billion Bitcoin appear out of nowhere, and what happened immediately after.
What actually happened?
On 15 August 2010, just under two years after Satoshi Nakamoto released his famous whitepaper, an unknown hacker nearly took down Bitcoin. The assailant randomly generated 184,467 billion Bitcoin out of nowever, in an attack that is now known as the Value Overflow Incident.
The hacker recognized a flaw in the early Bitcoin blockchain system: While there was a fixed maximum supply of 21 million Bitcoin, the code for checking Bitoin transactions did not work if the outputs were large enough to cause them to overflow (hence the Value Overflow Incident). The hacker, with one transaction, managed to create 8,784x the number of Bitcoin (BTC) that should never have existed.
So how did someone make 184.4 billion Bitcoin (BTC) appear out of nowhere? They found a hole in the code, and they used it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMp6XmRlCVM
What was done to prevent the untimely death of Bitcoin?
Within 3 hours of the incident being reported on Bitcoin Talk, Satoshi Nakamoto had a code fix up and running. 5 hours after the incident, Satoshi released a new version of Bitcoin - Bitcoin 0.3.1. This ensured that any attempt to exploit the fault in the code was rewound, effectively erasing the hacked 184.467 billion Bitcoin.
Two different versions of Bitcoin existed after this point - the good chain (version 0.3.1) and the bad chain (the hacked version). Nakamoto urged miners not to mine the bad chain as it would cause the good chain to take longer in becoming the dominant chain.
Just 19 hours after the saga began, Bitcoin 0.3.1 became the dominant chain - effectively saving the entire cryptoasset industry, and building it into what we know today.
Today, trading platforms and exchanges like eToro, Kraken, and Coinbase are thriving, and we couldn’t have experienced the thriving cryptoasset industry without the quick reaction of the Bitcoin pioneer, Satoshi Nakamoto.
https://twitter.com/jdetychey/status/1137026239582134273
What would have happened without the soft fork?
If Satoshi Nakamoto had been unable to rectify the hack, Bitcoin would almost certainly have died. Basically, there would have been no cryptocurrency industry to speak of. Bitcoin’s price would have dropped like a stone, and within 24 hours the entire system could have collapsed.
Today
Today we have a thriving cryptocurrency industry, with an overall market cap of around $226 billion USD (at the time of writing). Still, we have to ask ourselves exactly how someone made 184.4 billion Bitcoin appear out of nowhere. We need to remember that cryptocurrency and blockchain technology are not flawless designs - they’re designed by people, and people are inherently fallible. With that being said, the quick thinking and ingenuity of people is also what has saved this industry time and time again - here’s hoping to an equally (almost) as exciting future ahead.
https://www.cryptoninjas.net/2019/11/04/how-someone-made-184-4-billion-bitcoin-appear-out-of-nowhere/
What actually happened?
On 15 August 2010, just under two years after Satoshi Nakamoto released his famous whitepaper, an unknown hacker nearly took down Bitcoin. The assailant randomly generated 184,467 billion Bitcoin out of nowever, in an attack that is now known as the Value Overflow Incident.
The hacker recognized a flaw in the early Bitcoin blockchain system: While there was a fixed maximum supply of 21 million Bitcoin, the code for checking Bitoin transactions did not work if the outputs were large enough to cause them to overflow (hence the Value Overflow Incident). The hacker, with one transaction, managed to create 8,784x the number of Bitcoin (BTC) that should never have existed.
So how did someone make 184.4 billion Bitcoin (BTC) appear out of nowhere? They found a hole in the code, and they used it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMp6XmRlCVM
What was done to prevent the untimely death of Bitcoin?
Within 3 hours of the incident being reported on Bitcoin Talk, Satoshi Nakamoto had a code fix up and running. 5 hours after the incident, Satoshi released a new version of Bitcoin - Bitcoin 0.3.1. This ensured that any attempt to exploit the fault in the code was rewound, effectively erasing the hacked 184.467 billion Bitcoin.
Two different versions of Bitcoin existed after this point - the good chain (version 0.3.1) and the bad chain (the hacked version). Nakamoto urged miners not to mine the bad chain as it would cause the good chain to take longer in becoming the dominant chain.
Just 19 hours after the saga began, Bitcoin 0.3.1 became the dominant chain - effectively saving the entire cryptoasset industry, and building it into what we know today.
Today, trading platforms and exchanges like eToro, Kraken, and Coinbase are thriving, and we couldn’t have experienced the thriving cryptoasset industry without the quick reaction of the Bitcoin pioneer, Satoshi Nakamoto.
https://twitter.com/jdetychey/status/1137026239582134273
What would have happened without the soft fork?
If Satoshi Nakamoto had been unable to rectify the hack, Bitcoin would almost certainly have died. Basically, there would have been no cryptocurrency industry to speak of. Bitcoin’s price would have dropped like a stone, and within 24 hours the entire system could have collapsed.
Today
Today we have a thriving cryptocurrency industry, with an overall market cap of around $226 billion USD (at the time of writing). Still, we have to ask ourselves exactly how someone made 184.4 billion Bitcoin appear out of nowhere. We need to remember that cryptocurrency and blockchain technology are not flawless designs - they’re designed by people, and people are inherently fallible. With that being said, the quick thinking and ingenuity of people is also what has saved this industry time and time again - here’s hoping to an equally (almost) as exciting future ahead.
https://www.cryptoninjas.net/2019/11/04/how-someone-made-184-4-billion-bitcoin-appear-out-of-nowhere/
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