Completing the retirement of the alert system

Sep 10 - Sep 10, 2016

  • Bitcoin Core has completely removed the alert system, which was a centralized facility used to allow trusted parties to send messages displayed in wallet software.

The alert system had some potential uses but also had issues that made it problematic. It was a frequent source of misunderstanding about the security model and effective governance. Furthermore, the system was not scalable to different software vendors, and no one could tell who created a message. Additionally, there was good reason to believe that the key was compromised. Due to these issues, the alert system has been deactivated, and Gregory Maxwell via Bitcoin-dev plans to send a triggering alert in the future and disclose the private key in public to eliminate any further potential of reputation attacks and diminish the risk of misunderstanding the key as some special trusted source of authority.

Bitcoin Logo

TLDR

Join Our Newsletter

We’ll email you summaries of the latest discussions from authoritative bitcoin sources, like bitcoin-dev, lightning-dev, and Delving Bitcoin.

Explore all Products

ChatBTC imageBitcoin searchBitcoin TranscriptsSaving SatoshiBitcoin Transcripts Review
Built with 🧡 by the Bitcoin Dev Project
View our public visitor count

We'd love to hear your feedback on this project?

Give Feedback