Bitcoin (BTC) supply was almost boosted to 200 billion BTC by a bug that hit Bitcoin 15 years ago

Zak Cole, a blockchain protocol engineer and entrepreneur, has issued an X post to remind the crypto community, and especially Bitcoiners, about a major bug that hit Bitcoin 15 years ago, boosting its total supply to almost 200 billion BTC.

Zak Cole, a blockchain protocol engineer and entrepreneur, took to X to post a message reminding the crypto community, and especially Bitcoiners, of a major bug that hit Bitcoin 15 years ago, boosting its total supply to almost 200 billion BTC.

According to Cole, the community managed to save Bitcoin from that flaw, which makes it more important than the initial code hit by a bug.

Back in 2010, on August 15, there was a bug in block 74638 that generated 184,467,440,737.09551616 Bitcoins for three different wallets. That amount exceeded the 21 million BTC supply intended by Satoshi Nakamoto 8,784x.

Two of those wallets received 92.2 billion Bitcoins each.

That happened a year and a half after the Bitcoin launch on January 9, 2009. When it was noticed, within five hours, Satoshi Nakamoto and several other developers, including Jeff Garzik and Gavin Andresen, rolled out a new client version that contained a soft fork to prevent similar incidents in the future. At block 74691 all the nodes upgraded and the new chain overtook the old one.

"Bitcoin broke today. A bug in Block 74638 created 184 billion BTC out of thin air. That’s not a typo. Two outputs of 92 billion BTC each slipped through because the code didn’t check for integer overflow. The system just accepted it. Bitcoin’s sacred 21 million…

"A bug in Block 74638 created 184 billion BTC out of thin air. That’s not a typo. Two outputs of 92 billion BTC each slipped through because the code didn’t check for integer overflow. The system just accepted it. Bitcoin’s sacred 21 million monetary policy, a figment of the founders’ vision, was quickly evaporating.

"Had it continued for another 24 hours, the entire Bitcoin monetary policy would have been wiped out. The bug was spotted and a new client version was quickly deployed to fix it. A soft fork was performed at Block 74691, upgrading all the nodes and saving Bitcoin from total collapse.

"No code is perfect. Only community can spot flaws and bugs and remove them timely. Countless hours went into building Bitcoin, but it was almost destroyed by a single bug. And it was a minor bug in a part of the code that had no bearing on the protocol’s economic properties.

"Had it not been spotted, people would have continued using the old client and the buggy chain would have grown longer. The new client was quickly deployed, but the buggy one would have remained in the majority for a while.

"Bitcoin’s scarcity is not protected by code. It’s protected by people. The only reason Bitcoin didn’t die that day is because someone noticed. Bitcoin’s monetary policy was rescued, not by the protocol, but by the humans running it."