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Comment by FabHK

2 days 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  2 days 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.

  • FabHK  8 hours ago

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

    One occasion was the 184 bn Bitcoin bug, the other was an unintentional fork due to a faulty software upgrade.