BTCPay Exploit and BIP-110 Fork Risk Spook Bitcoin Market
Bitcoin's price hovered near $65,000 over the weekend despite market anxiety stemming from two security incidents. The first was a severe exploit targeting BTCPay Server, a platform used by merchants to accept Bitcoin payments via the Lightning Network.
The attackers accessed authentication files called 'macaroons' that gave them control over Lightning nodes and allowed them to drain funds out of wallet balances. BTCPay's developer team promptly warned users to either upgrade to version 2.4.2 immediately or shut down their servers entirely to prevent further losses.
A separate technical challenge emerged with BIP-110, a proposed Bitcoin upgrade intended to restrict certain types of non-transactional data from being embedded in the blockchain. However, only 2.6% of Bitcoin's mining power supported BIP-110, far below the 55% threshold needed for broad activation.
Meanwhile, institutional appetite for Bitcoin intensified amid the technical and security turmoil. US-based spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds attracted approximately $1 billion in net capital inflows over the past week, marking their strongest week since April.