bitcoin-dev

Year 2038 problem and year 2106 chain halting

Year 2038 problem and year 2106 chain halting

Original Postby Kate Salazar

Posted on: October 17, 2021 08:19 UTC

A recent discussion on the Bitcoin-dev mailing list has brought up the issue of Bitcoin Core's functionality after the year 2038.

It was noted that the software will stop working due to assertion checking if the current time is non-negative. Additionally, the entire chain will halt after reaching median time 0xffffffff in the year 2106. A link to a Bitcointalk thread was provided for more information. One member of the mailing list suggested that making Bitcoin function after 2038 would require a hard fork. They also argued that if a hard fork were to occur, it should bundle other hard fork changes with it. To supplement this discussion, a link to the Hardfork Wishlist on the Bitcoin Wiki was shared. However, it was noted that the page's last update was somewhat old.