← RETURN TO THE CHAIN
March 11, 2013Crises & controversyChain splitsdocumented

An accidental chain split is resolved

A large block accepted by Bitcoin 0.8 nodes was rejected by many older nodes, splitting the network into two chains.

Developers and major mining pools coordinated a temporary return to version 0.7 rules so the older-compatible chain became dominant. Trading and some payment processing paused while the network converged.