11-22-2024
BSV
$68.08
Vol 165.07m
-11.78%
BTC
$98966
Vol 107665.19m
1.58%
BCH
$496.73
Vol 1769.73m
-5.07%
LTC
$90.73
Vol 1336.75m
2.68%
DOGE
$0.39
Vol 9750.68m
2.41%
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

The Bitcoin Cash network underwent its planned hard fork upgrade on May 15, with a goal of implementing security and privacy features to the blockchain. Things, however, aren’t going as planned.

The protocol upgrade was activated on block 582680, but the network appeared to be stuck without new blocks produced for some time—it took approximately half an hour before the next block was produced. BitMEX Research pointed out a possible problem with the BCH hard fork, tweeting that “the number of txs per block is low (0 in the last 9 blocks, other than the coinbase txn).”

The BCH network had been processing only one transaction per block, essentially just the block reward, for the last 10 blocks until block 582697, in which it processed 89 transactions.

‘Small’ hard fork bug results in near zero-tx per block on Bitcoin Cash network
Source: Cash.Coin.Dance

BU developer Greg Griffith explained on Reddit that the glitch had been an ABC client issue, stating that “any miner who is mining with ABC is affected. If they are mining with BU [Bitcoin Unlimited] they don’t have the issue.”

The glitch, in which the BCH blocks did include any transactions except the Coinbase transaction, has caused the mempool to fill up. In fact, Reddit users pointed out that the mempool grew 10MB during the two hours that the network processed zero transactions per block.

In response, ABC developers are reportedly deploying a patch to solve the issue. Reddit user Ferriesta Patronum, a developer with Bitcoin Verde, explained that “there was a small bug in the mempool-acceptance rules for after the HF [hard fork] for reference-client-derived nodes.” Though no coins were in danger, the bug highlighted “the need for a more distributed codebase,” the developer stressed.

Comment
byu/throwawayo12345 from discussion
inbtc

Still, the incident has prompted users to ask why such a major bug wasn’t caught before the release. To which Griffith answered: “Unfortunately tests do not cover 100% of the possibilities as much as developers might try to account for everything. Sometimes things are missed.”

This story will be updated as new information comes in.

Recommended for you

David Case gets technical with Bitcoin masterclass coding sessions
Whether you're a coding pro or a novice, David Case's livestream sessions on the X platform are not to be...
November 21, 2024
NY Supreme Court’s ruling saves BTC miner Greenidge from closing
However, the judge also ruled that Greenidge must reapply for the permit and that the Department of Environmental Conservation has...
November 20, 2024
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement