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Comment by FabHK

1 day ago

> Bitcoin finality is probabilistic, like nearly everything in cryptography.

Yes, Bitcoin finality is probabilistic, and practically good enough after half a day or so (though 20 blocks were rolled back on at least 2 occasions).

However, many things in cryptography are not probabilistic. And in BFT-type consensus, every block is immediately final; the question of finality doesn't even arise (which is why the concept only gained prominence with Nakamoto consensus).

Regarding forks, there was BCH, BSV, etc. - those were not programming errors.

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FabHK

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olalonde  1 day ago

> though 20 blocks were rolled back on at least 2 occasions

Do you mean because of the bugs mentioned earlier or during the normal course of operations? Curious to read more about that.

> Regarding forks, there was BCH, BSV, etc. - those were not programming errors.

That's a different kind of "fork" though and those are arguably not Bitcoin. They're basically just competing cryptocurrencies that happened to use an existing blockchain to get started.