Bitcoin lessons · failures without a gloss
What went wrong.
Bitcoin's history is not only a story of successful decisions. Here are failures of trust, validation bugs, compromised platforms and conflicts around mining. Explore what happened and the documents behind each account.
10 articles · hypothesis kept separateMarkets and expectations
A price is not a promise of stability
Without history, you cannot manage risk
History cannot promise profit, but it can expose repeated decisions, fear, euphoria and error.
Read article2018–2026 · Market periodsCrash, Silence, Acceleration: Bitcoin’s History by Period
What happened in 2018–2020, 2020–2021, 2021–2022, 2023–2024, and 2025–2026, without a price forecast.
Read articleRisk · Reserves, redemption, and trustWhen a “Stable” Coin Loses Its Stability
Why the same-looking depeg can mean a temporary liquidity break, a reserve problem, or the collapse of the design itself.
Read articleExchanges and intermediaries
The network worked. The platform did not
When an exchange printed a one-cent bitcoin price
The network kept working while a compromised venue showed the world a distorted market price.
Read articleBitcoinica · March–July 2012Three breaches: the warning that was not enough
How repeated compromises turned a technical weakness into a crisis of custody, records, and responsibility.
Read articleValidation and bugs
When the rules were put to the test
Six Confirmations That Never Existed
How miners signalled support for new rules while building on an invalid block.
Read articleBitcoin Core · 2024–2026Fix First, Disclose Later
How a dangerous block-validation bug was repaired before details were published and disclosed after the vulnerable branch reached end of life.
Read articleLiquid · September 6–11, 2026When the Signatures Were Real but the Coins Were Not
How an Elements bug allowed about 4,000 unbacked L-BTC to be created and why valid signatures did not stop a payout of real BTC.
Read articleEclair · Release 0.14.3 · September 14, 2026When a Lightning Channel Peer Could Make You Overpay
Why Eclair 0.14.3 is a security release and how bugs in channel closing, splicing, and on-the-fly funding could affect a node's balance.
Read articlePeople and consequences