Has The Bitcoin Network Ever Gone Down? (2024)

Our Bitcoin Uptime tracker shows that Bitcoin’s total uptime is close to 99.99%.

In fact:

Bitcoin has only been down twice.

Once in 2010, and another time in 2013.

So, what caused Bitcoin to go down in the past? We’ll explain everything here.

Key Takeaways

  • Bitcoin went down in 2010 for 8 hours and 27 minutes.
  • The Bitcoin network was down in 2013 for 6 hours and 20 minutes.
  • Since the 2013 downtime, the Bitcoin network has not gone down.

2010 Downtime Event

Bitcoin went down in 2010 due to something called The Value Overflow Incident (also known as CVE-2010-5139).

On August 15, 2010 block 74638 was created and it contained a transaction that created 184,467,440,737.09551616 bitcoins for three different addresses.

Bitcoin developer Jeff Garzik noticed this and posted on the old bitcointalk forums:

Has The Bitcoin Network Ever Gone Down? (1)

Since one of Bitcoin’s main features is its 21 million limit, this was an obvious bug.

The reason the bug was able to happen was because there was, at the time, no check to make sure that values so large could not be sent.

Bitcoin’s founder, Satoshi Nakamoto, posted a code update for this bug around 5 hours after the bug was discovered.

Has The Bitcoin Network Ever Gone Down? (2)

The extra bitcoins sent in that transaction no longer exist.

2013 Downtime Event

The 2013 Bitcoin downtime (also called CVE-2013-3220) event was very different than 2010’s bug.

In 2010, someone temporarily “created” new bitcoins. In 2013, there was a network split where Bitcoin’s network temporarily split into two separate networks.

Versions 0.7 and 0.8 of the Bitcoin software diverged from each other, causing the block chain to “fork” into two.

Unlike 2010, by 2013 there were already a good number of people using Bitcoin. The 2013 bug being discovered caused the Bitcoin price to fall by 23%.

Has The Bitcoin Network Ever Gone Down? (3)

Downtime By Year

Bitcoin has only been down twice, and you can see that the network has had 100% uptime since the last bug in 2013.

Year Uptime
2010 99.90%
2011 100%
2012 100%
2013 99.93%
2014 100%
2015 100%
2016 100%
2017 100%
2018 100%
2019 100%
2020 100%
2021 100%
2022 100%
2023 100%

Conclusion

Bitcoin is one of the most reliable networks, with nearly 99.99% uptime.

Both of Bitcoin’s downtime events were early on, and since then, Bitcoin has maintained very stable uptime.

We’ll monitor any other bugs that come up.

Has The Bitcoin Network Ever Gone Down? (2024)

FAQs

Has The Bitcoin Network Ever Gone Down? ›

Key Takeaways. Bitcoin went down in 2010 for 8 hours and 27 minutes. The Bitcoin network was down in 2013 for 6 hours and 20 minutes. Since the 2013 downtime, the Bitcoin network has not gone down.

What is the problem with the Bitcoin network? ›

Limitations with Bitcoin's Protocol
  • Block size. One Bitcoin block is limited to holding 1 megabyte (MB) of data.
  • Block time. A new Bitcoin block is generated approximately every 10 minutes.
  • Throughput. ...
  • Transaction Cost. ...
  • Programmability.

Has the Bitcoin network ever been hacked? ›

Has Bitcoin Been Hacked Yet? There are no reports of Bitcoin's blockchain and network being hacked as of May 11, 2024. However, service providers, wallets, and applications are all vulnerable and have been hacked.

Is the BTC server down? ›

There is no ongoing event on the Bitcoin network.

Why Bitcoin is declining? ›

"Bitcoin has dropped amid increasing selling pressure, reflecting declines in both U.S. and Asian equity markets. Investors are closely monitoring upcoming U.S. data, which could provide insights into a potential interest rate cut by the Federal Reserve," said Edul Patel, CEO of Mudrex.

How safe is Bitcoin network? ›

Transaction hashing, mining, block confirmations, and game theory all work together to make Bitcoin's blockchain impenetrable. Since the first transaction block in 2009, the network has never once shut down – and no bitcoin has ever been stolen from the blockchain. Bitcoin's track record of security speaks for itself.

Has the Bitcoin network ever been down? ›

Key Takeaways. Bitcoin went down in 2010 for 8 hours and 27 minutes. The Bitcoin network was down in 2013 for 6 hours and 20 minutes. Since the 2013 downtime, the Bitcoin network has not gone down.

Is Bitcoin Network real? ›

The Bitcoin protocol is open-source software that was originally created by Bitcoin's pseudonymous founder, Satoshi Nakamoto. Anyone in the world can run the software, and thousands of people have contributed to its development since launching in 2009.

Can the government shut down Bitcoin? ›

Since Bitcoin does not have any particular central authority, the government could just require every node that operates in the U.S. to have a license, effectively rendering the use of Bitcoin illegal since presumably most individuals would be incapable of going through such an arduous process.

Is it safe to leave Bitcoin on Coinbase? ›

At Coinbase, we're committed to security by using industry best practices and storing up to 97% of bitcoins in encrypted, geographically separated, offline storage. To further protect our customers, all of the bitcoins stored in online computers are insured.

What is the current Bitcoin network difficulty? ›

The current Bitcoin hashrate is 765.62 EH/s, representing the global Bitcoin network hashrate with a mining difficulty of 89.47 T at block height 860,510. View the Bitcoin hashrate chart for current and all time Bitcoin historical hashrates.

Is blockchain currently having issues? ›

No incidents reported. Resolved - All systems are working. We are actively monitoring the current status.

How is BTC doing today? ›

Bitcoin's price today is US$57,924.64, with a 24-hour trading volume of $36.69 B. BTC is +2.42% in the last 24 hours. It is currently -0.86% from its 7-day all-time high of $58,427.44, and 10.02% from its 7-day all-time low of $52,648.75. BTC has a circulating supply of 19.75 M BTC and a max supply of 21 M BTC.

Will Bitcoin rise again? ›

Daily Bitcoin (BTC) Price Prediction For Today, Tomorrow, this Week, and Next 30 Days. Based on your price prediction input for Bitcoin, the value of BTC is projected to increase by 5%, potentially reaching $ 58,000.54 in the next 30 days.

Is Bitcoin going to recover? ›

Major cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum have shown significant gains, reflecting broader market optimism. Experts predict a market rebound from August onward, driven by the cessation of liquidations and renewed inflows.

Is Bitcoin a good investment? ›

From an investment perspective, Bitcoin toes the line between being a medium of exchange and a speculative digital asset. It also lacks any central governing body to regulate its distribution. As one might expect, these factors together make Bitcoin quite volatile, and therefore somewhat risky as an investment target.

What is the biggest problem with Bitcoin? ›

Bitcoins Are Not Widely Accepted

Bitcoins are still only accepted by a very small group of online merchants. This makes it unfeasible to completely rely on Bitcoins as a currency. There is also a possibility that governments might force merchants to not use Bitcoins to ensure that users' transactions can be tracked.

What is the problem associated with Bitcoin? ›

The price volatility, alleged use in criminal activities that may not be easy to map, and high energy consumption for mining the coins are considered some of the key challenges to accepting cryptocurrencies, aside from the fact that these coins do not have any sovereign guarantee or approval.

What happens if Bitcoin network goes down? ›

In the unlikely scenario that the Internet could be shut down globally and maintained in that state, Bitcoin would effectively enter a state of "hibernation." The network would cease to process transactions, but the currency itself would not vanish. Bitcoin's data is redundantly stored across a vast network of nodes.

Can the Bitcoin network be shut down? ›

However, any attempts to ban or regulate Bitcoin out of existence are improbable to succeed. Bitcoin itself is decentralized. Any attempts to shut down Bitcoin would mean all the governments worldwide would have to collaborate and shut down the internet at the same time.

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