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illokratamus
·
a year ago
The Day Someone Created 184 Billion Bitcoin
In August 2010, a sneaky hacker discovered a flaw in Bitcoin's code and magically created a whopping 184 billion Bitcoins! Keep in mind that the total limit for Bitcoins is supposed to be just 21 million.
This wild creation happened in block "74,638" and was spread across two addresses, making it quite a puzzling discovery. Thankfully, sharp-eyed Jeff Garzik spotted the oddity on a forum.
But don't worry, our hero Satoshi Nakamoto quickly came to the rescue! He fixed the bug within about 5 hours and released a new patch. They created a new fork to solve the issue.
Good thing this happened when Bitcoin wasn't worth much at all. Imagine if it occurred today – the amount of money lost would be astronomical!
The whole incident was later labeled the "Value Overflow Bug." If this hacker had been successful today, owning 184 billion Bitcoins would've made them worthless! Phew, crisis averted!
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