Bitcoin mining firm Marathon Digital has confirmed it mined an invalid\u00a0 Bitcoin (BTC) block during an \u201cexperiment\u201d aimed at optimizing the firm\u2019s operations.<\/p>\n
In a Sept. 27 post, Marathon said\u00a0it utilizes a small percentage of the firm\u2019s hashrate toward these experiments and stressed they weren\u2019t trying to alter the network in any way:<\/p>\n
\u201cIn no way was this experiment an attempt to alter Bitcoin Core in any way.\u201d Marathon said, emphasizing that they corrected the error as soon as they noticed the invalid block.<\/p>\n
Marathon said the bug, which emanated from the firm\u2019s internal development environment, wasn\u2019t related to Marathon\u2019s Bitcoin production pool or Bitcoin Core \u2014 the leading software used to connect to the Bitcoin network and run a node.<\/p>\n
The incident occurred on Sept. 26 at 9:42 pm UTC on block 809478, according to mempool.space.<\/p>\n
Several Bitcoin developers, along with BitMEX Research attributed the invalid block to a \u201ctransaction ordering issue.\u201d Bitcoin developer \u201cmononaut\u201d believes Marathon mistake came from resorting the transactions in order of ascending absolute fees.<\/p>\n
Bitcoin analyst Dylan LeClair suggested that Marathon should have conducted this experiment on a testnet before attempting it on Bitcoin\u2019s mainnet.<\/p>\n
In reflection, Marathon said Bitcoin \u201cfunctioned exactly as designed\u201d by excluding the invalid block:<\/p>\n
\u201cThis incident, while unintended, underscores the robust security of the Bitcoin network, which rejected and rectified the anomaly.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n