On August 15, 2010, Bitcoin broke.
A bug in Block 74638 created 184 billion BTC out of thin air. That’s not a typo. Two outputs of 92 billion BTC each slipped through because the code didn’t check for integer overflow. The system just accepted it. Bitcoin’s sacred 21 million cap? Completely ignored.
This wasn’t a theoretical flaw. It actually happened. And it proved something most people still don’t understand.
Bitcoin’s scarcity is not protected by code. It’s protected by people.
The only reason Bitcoin didn’t die that day is because someone noticed. A fix was pushed. A patched client was released. Nodes upgraded. Within five hours, the invalid block was erased from consensus. Bitcoin’s monetary policy was rescued, not by the protocol, but by the humans running it.
That’s the truth behind the “trustless” narrative. Code did not save Bitcoin. The community did.
Scarcity was never a guarantee. It was a fight. And it still is.
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