Bitcoin [BTC]: Developer says there is currently a small risk of a chainsplit

Recently, Michael Marquardt, popularly known as “Theymos”, BitcoinTalk administrator and also the moderator of Reddit /r/Bitcoin posted an announcement on his subreddit regarding the recently released Bitcoin core version 0.16.3. Through his post, he warns people of potential harm if they do not upgrade to the latest version available.

He stated:

“0.16.3 was announced a few days ago, but if you’re running a node and haven’t already updated, then you really must do so as soon as possible. The bug fixed in 0.16.3 is more severe than was previously made public.”

On 18th September, Bitcoin.org’s co-owner, who goes by the name Cobra on Twitter revealed that a hazardous bug was identified by developers and fixed on the Bitcoin network. He also stated that if the bug had gone unidentified it had the potential to crash a huge chunk of the Bitcoin’s network.

On the same day, Bitcoin [BTC] community saw the release of v0.16.3. Cobra assured the Bitcoin community that the new release was free of the exploitable bug found in previous versions [0.14.0 and 0.16.2]. Reiterating the same, Theymos had taken to Reddit to inform the BTC community that older versions must not run on the Bitcoin Network and everybody must upgrade to the new version “ASAP”.

The Redditor explained to the community that if a user is running the Bitcoin core very occasionally it was not necessary to upgrade to the new version immediately. However, the upgrade is recommended before the next run. He said that the Cold-storage wallets were safe.

Furthermore, he stated that “Store funds were not at risk, even if the bug would have been exploited to its fullest extent. In his words :

“Stored funds are not at risk, and never were at risk. Even if the bug had been exploited to its full extent, the theoretical damage to stored funds would have been rolled back, exactly as it was in the value overflow incident.”

According to Theymos, there can be a possible risk of a “chainsplit”. Explaining further he stated that in the event of a chainsplit, transactions can be reversed despite being fully confirmed earlier. Moreover, the Redditor stated that the community needs to consider the possibility of transactions with less than 200 confirmations being reversed in the coming week. Theymos suggests users to be hooked on for further news, in the event of a chainsplit.