'Bitcoin Bug' Exploited on Crypto Fork as Attacker Prints 235 Million Pigeoncoins

A severe bug discovered just weeks ago in bitcoin's code has been exploited - albeit on a lesser-known cryptocurrency.

The developers behind the pigeoncoin cryptocurrency confirmed the exploit to CoinDesk on Tuesday, reporting that an unknown miner successfully took advantage of the bug on September 26th, showcasing in the wild how it could have been used on bitcoin by printing 235 million coins worth about $15,000.

That's because while the severe inflation bug was patched on bitcoin, other coins that have borrowed bitcoin's public code over the years are still vulnerable.

If exploited, the bug gives an attacker the ability to print as many coins as they want, going even above the hard-coded limitations on supply cryptocurrencies often have and decreasing the value of all the other coins investors hold.

With a total supply of 970 million pigeoncoins, the attacker was able to print an amount equal to one-fourth of all publicly traded pigeoncoins, prompting one of the only exchanges to support the currency, CryptoBridge, to temporarily suspend trading while developers moved to enact a fix.

After the inflation was detected, developers of the coin quickly released a software fix borrowing from the code bitcoin developers put out a couple of weeks ago.

Now the bug is fixed, observers are wondering what the attacker will do and whether he or she will successful be able to trade their gains for fiat money.

In order to do so, the attacker most likely will need to convert their pigeoncoin into another cryptocurrency that's more widely accepted.

"It would be interesting to see how many coins suffered an attack due to [the] bug," Roberts told CoinDesk, adding that pigeoncoin is the only one he knows has been exploited so far.

Still, Roberts added that many cryptocurrencies, such as bitcoin gold and litecoin, have now upgraded, so hopefully the same attack won't be executed on other coins.