Bitcoin Core Passes First Independent Audit With No Serious Flaws Found

Bitcoin Core successfully passed its first independent security audit conducted by the French firm Quarkslab. No high or medium-severity vulnerabilities were found in the codebase, confirming its maturity. The audit focused on the P2P layer and block validation logic, sensitive components of the network.

The world’s largest decentralized network has received an institutional vote of confidence. The software that secures the pioneer crypto network, Bitcoin Core, successfully passed its first security audit, confirming the security and maturity of Bitcoin Core’s codebase.

The review was carried out by the French security firm Quarkslab, commissioned by OSTIF on behalf of Brink. The audit lasted 104 days, between May and September, during which auditors carefully examined the project’s most sensitive components, with a special emphasis on the peer-to-peer (P2P) layer and block validation logic.

The final report highlights that Bitcoin Core’s codebase is “the most secure and best tested” of those evaluated so far, despite its large size, which includes over 200,000 lines of C++ and more than 1,200 already implemented tests.

During the review, no high or medium-severity vulnerabilities were found, identifying only two minor severity issues and some suggestions for improvement related to test coverage. It is crucial to note that none of the findings had any impact on network consensus, denial-of-service attack resilience, or transaction validation.

Reinforcing the P2P Layer Amidst the Debate

The central focus of the review was Bitcoin’s P2P layer, the essential component for peer discovery and the relaying of blocks and transactions across approximately 125 connections per node.

Auditors stated that no cases were found where malicious data could bypass validation or the banning mechanism designed to isolate misbehaving peers. Furthermore, no exploitable pathways were identified in critical areas such as mempool logic or chain reorganization management, reinforcing Bitcoin Core’s security and maturity.

This result comes amidst a dispute between supporters of Bitcoin Core and Bitcoin Knots, a debate that revolves around whether or not to allow the inclusion of non-financial data on the blockchain. While critics warn that the change could “open the floodgates” to spam, Bitcoin Core developers argue that imposing restrictions would harm network cohesion and contradict the technology’s principles of openness.

Despite this discussion, the audit reinforces confidence in Bitcoin Core’s security and maturity at an institutional level, a sentiment that aligns with a Galaxy Digital survey, where most institutional investors polled were indifferent or sided with Bitcoin Core in the dispute.