Insights into Chain Death Spiral and Other Vulnerabilities Plaguing Bitcoin
Bitcoin (BTC) has been in the limelight lately for all the wrong reasons, including its associated risks and some vulnerabilities it has. A few of the most concerning vulnerabilities and issues that BTC faces are related to: problems with difficulty adjustment, the possibility of a Chain Death Spiral, and the ongoing rise in the mempool. In the following sections, we will explore these issues in greater detail. A Closer Look at Vulnerabilities and Issues Bitcoin is Facing Issue #1: Bitcoin's Vulnerability With Respect to Difficulty Adjustment and the 2016 Blocks Right at the time of the Bitcoin fork, it became clear that Bitcoin’s protocol has an inherent vulnerability. The vulnerability relates to the difficulty adjustment: in the event there is a loss of mining power by the chain, it will have to wait for a total of 2016 blocks to be processed before a difficulty adjustment can take place to bring the block time back to its normal ten minute target. If mining power is not restore...