5 entries
An integer overflow bug (CVE-2010-5139) was exploited to create 184,467,440,737.09551616 BTC in a single transaction in Block 74638. Satoshi Nakamoto published a fix within 5 hours, and the corrected chain overtook the invalid chain within 15 hours — the most serious crisis in Bitcoin's history.
Satoshi responds to a critical value overflow incident in Bitcoin, one of the most serious bugs in Bitcoin's early history. He quickly deployed a fix.
Peter Todd proposed BIP 65, introducing the OP_CHECKLOCKTIMEVERIFY opcode that allows Bitcoin transaction outputs to remain unspendable until a specified future time. The proposal redefined the existing NOP2 opcode and was deployed as a soft fork, enabling use cases including escrow with delayed access, two-factor wallets, and payment channels.
Proposed Segregated Witness (SegWit), the most significant protocol upgrade since Bitcoin's creation. By separating signature data from transaction data, SegWit fixed transaction malleability, enabled the Lightning Network, increased effective block capacity, and introduced a new transaction format — all via a backward-compatible soft fork.
Introduced Taproot, the most significant Bitcoin protocol upgrade since SegWit. By combining Schnorr signatures (BIP 340) with Merkelized Abstract Syntax Trees (MAST), Taproot makes complex spending conditions as private and efficient as simple payments, while enabling more sophisticated smart contracts.