Bitcoin Unlimited (BU), which has been touted as being the fix to Bitcoin’s blockchain transaction backlog, has suffered a blow after attackers unleashed a new bug that crashed the system.
Just recently, BU was reported to have garnered around 40 percent support over a 24-hour period from the Bitcoin community. While miners such as Antpool, Bitcoin’s biggest mining pool, announced that it was switching over to BU.
However, whether it’s in light of the recent attack, support for BU has dropped to 32.6 percent, according to Coin.Dance, a website which tracks industry data.
Information from the tracking site illustrates that following the attacks, the number of nodes hosting BU fell to 410 from 781 yesterday. This is the lowest level it has dropped to since October last year when it started to steadily increase. It has since crept back up to 690.
Support for BU Lessens
Earlier this month, Bitcoin core developer Gavin Andresen, tweeted ‘run Bitcoin Unlimited. It is a viable, practical solution to destructive transaction congestion.’
However, after the discovery of the bug, BU advocate Roger Ver, said:
Normally, in Bitcoin Unlimited when we find a Core bug we just fix it and move on.
With his comment receiving criticism on social media, this news is unlikely to do much to boost support for BU. With many claiming that those behind BU don’t have the experience to fix the blockchain’s transaction congestion, this is likely to provide fuel for its critics who are against the system.
Only recently, Charlie Lee, creator of Litecoin, said on Twitter that ‘users cannot trust Bitcoin’s $20 billion network in the hands of BU developers.’
Samson Mow, CEO at game creator Pixelmatic, took to social media to question an alleged doctored image about a BU vulnerability after suspicions were raised when the potential vulnerability didn’t add up:
[I] thought it was impossible for Bitcoin Unlimited to be even less credible, but nope, they never stop surprising me.
Whereas, Andreas Antonopoulos, Bitcoin author, said on Twitter:
This time there was little economic impact. During a fork, the damage would have been millions. QA matters. It matters $millions.
Blockchain Still Has a Problem
As blockchain’s transaction issues remain, a solution to fixing the congestion needs to be agreed on. However, how long that will take is yet to be seen.
While the BU bug attack won’t do much to bolster support there are still miners fully committed to sticking with it. Antpool is just one miner.
With both sides raising the stakes as to the most viable choice it doesn’t look as though an answer will occur anytime soon. For now, around 900,000 Bitcoin transactions waiting to be cleared will be stuck on the blockchain as the network runs over capacity.
Featured image from Shutterstock.
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