On the same timeline, the Bitcoin ecosystem presents an eerie contrasting picture: on one side is the judgment provided by Matt Corallo on MARA Foundation TV, based on a single source, where he estimates that there is about an 80% chance that the next soft fork of the Bitcoin network will land on BIP-54 proposed in 2019. This proposal, known as the "Great Consensus Cleanup," aims to clean up four long-standing vulnerabilities in the consensus rules (including issues related to difficulty rules) all at once; on the other side, however, is a recurrent loss of security: although the open-source Bitcoin payment processing tool BTCPay Server fixed a certain vulnerability in the update on August 7, servers running version 2.4.1 and earlier are still exposed. Since November 1, the BTCPay team has received multiple reports of funds being stolen from hot wallets, and on November 2 confirmed that attacks were concentrated on old instances, publicly urging users to migrate to the fixed version immediately to reduce the risk of being compromised again. At the same time, after a major hacking incident at Binance, where hackers controlled several Bitcoin addresses, a large number of strangers sent small amounts of Bitcoin (less than $1) to suspected hacker addresses, engraving messages requesting the return of funds, promotional information, and even money laundering suggestions through OP_RETURN on the chain, yet they never received any response. Behind the narrative of "cleaning up vulnerabilities" at the protocol level, the security culture and concrete practices of the Bitcoin ecosystem have clearly not kept pace with the advancement of technical governance.
The Great Consensus Cleanup BIP-54: Developers Bet on the Next Soft Fork
Unlike the emotional on-chain messages surrounding the hacker addresses, BIP-54 has always focused on those "invisible" technical debts at the protocol level. This proposal, submitted in 2019, does not intend to add any new functions to Bitcoin but aims to unify the repair of four long-standing vulnerabilities in the consensus rules through a soft fork, at least one of which directly involves the difficulty rules themselves. It is more like a bottom-up "garbage cleanup": tightening validation boundaries and plugging the gaps left by outdated code, rather than stuffing another dazzling new story onto the chain. This path of great consensus cleanup is highly consistent with Bitcoin's long-standing preference for conservative, security-first technical routes.
Because of this, when developer Matt Corallo stated on MARA Foundation TV that there is "about an 80% chance the next soft fork will be BIP-54," the market quickly interpreted this remark as a signal that the protocol layer is about to undergo a systematic cleanup. However, existing materials clearly indicate that this 80% is merely his personal estimate from a single source, lacking formal community consensus or any public activation timeline or process details to extrapolate from. Since its introduction in 2019, BIP-54 has remained in "candidate" status, which in itself illustrates the pace of Bitcoin governance: even for repairing known vulnerabilities, it may only materialize after a long review and discussion process. Once the entire network ultimately chooses this cleanup-oriented soft fork as the next upgrade direction, what the outside world will see is a continuous effort to stitch up old wounds, rather than frequently replacing the entire skeletal structure in a manner consistent with security preferences.
BTCPay Old Versions Hacked: Patch Released, Upgrades Lagging
In the Bitcoin ecosystem, BTCPay Server plays the role of a "payment backend": a set of open-source Bitcoin payment processing tools that allow merchants, donation pages, or individuals to self-host payment and receiving services, managing hot wallets and server operations themselves. Because it is self-hosted, the security boundary does not stop at the code level. In this incident, according to a single source, the relevant vulnerability was actually fixed in the update released on August 7, but the BTCPay team continued to receive several reports of stolen funds from hot wallets since November 1 and confirmed in an investigative update on November 2 that the attacks were concentrated on instances running versions 2.4.1 and earlier. The official immediately suggested that all users still running old versions migrate to the fixed version to reduce the risk of continued attacks, yet the total scale of stolen funds and the number of affected users have not been disclosed to this day.
From an operational perspective, this is a typical "patch released, upgrade lagging" incident, exposing a shortcoming in the security culture of the open-source ecosystem: the development team had completed technical fixes over the summer, but long-standing old versions remained exposed to foreseeable attack surfaces. Tools like BTCPay are not forced to push updates, and many operators treat them as infrastructure that does not require further inquiry once set up, lacking a habit of incorporating version management, vulnerability announcements, and risk assessments into daily processes. In contrast to BIP-54, which requires years of consensus discussions to materialize, the security bottlenecks of such application layer tools often do not lie in the protocol but in the varying depths of the operators' understanding of "self-responsibility." This incident serves as a reminder to all who choose self-hosting: the reliability of security trust does not depend on whether patches exist but rather on whether you view upgrades and audits as ongoing operational responsibilities that must be executed.
Begging on the Chain to the Hacker: OP_RETURN Becomes an Emotional Bulletin Board
After Binance experienced a major hacking attack, Bitcoin addresses controlled by hackers were soon surrounded by "strangers." It was not a freezing order from law enforcement but small transfers of less than $1, like throwing stones into a deep well, merely to leave a trace of their voice on the chain. Senders invoked OP_RETURN, embedding dozens of characters of messages in blocks: some reported their loss details, almost pleading with the hackers to "have a conscience"; some took the opportunity to promote so-called "fund recovery services," treating the disaster as a customer acquisition entry point; and others, presenting themselves as "professional consultants," offered money laundering paths to the hackers, trying to prove their value in the eyes of the attackers. The entire transaction record of the address quickly transformed from a cold list of stolen assets into a bulletin board filled with mixed emotions and speculation.
This scene of "on-chain begging" essentially represents a collective faceplant against the irreversibility of Bitcoin transactions and the lack of formal recourse mechanisms. When the protocol layer has no "regret medicine," and no authority can press the withdrawal button on the chain, the only way ordinary users can reach out to hackers is to send another transaction to that address, stuffing their stories and moral appeals into OP_RETURN. The outcome is also evident: according to a single source, the hacker address had never responded to these messages, and funds were not returned. The role of the Bitcoin main chain in such security incidents resembles that of a passive monument recording emotions and moral appeals, rather than serving as a judicial channel capable of providing real relief.
Technical Consensus Moves Forward, Yet Security Practices Lag Behind
On one hand is BIP-54, which has been on the table since 2019, attempting to address four long-standing technical vulnerabilities left in Bitcoin's consensus rules through a soft fork, including issues related to difficulty rules. Recently, it was once again highlighted by developers as a "high-probability option for the next soft fork," with the protocol layer's attitude summarized as a cautious yet thorough "clean slate." On the other hand is the reality of application layers like BTCPay: the patch to fix the issues was released on August 7, yet from November 1 onwards, the team still received reports of stolen funds from hot wallets, confirming that attacks were concentrated on old instances running versions 2.4.1 and earlier. This shows that as long as the operational upgrades lag behind, patches in the repository cannot automatically turn into a true line of defense against attacks. Looking further out, on the same network, the Binance hacker addresses served as vessels for strangers' micro-transfers and OP_RETURN messages, with pleas, promotions, and even suggestions for money laundering permanently inscribed on the chain without any response. This reflects a security perspective that relies on the goodwill of attackers rather than institutional relief.
These three threads woven together form more of a profile of the security culture and direction of attention rather than a quantifiable risk exposure chart. Current materials do not provide systemic data on overall positions, exposure of funds, or price volatility, so we cannot determine whether the objective risk in the Bitcoin ecosystem is contracting or expanding. However, we can see a clear boundary: no matter how cautious protocol-level governance and soft fork designs are, they cannot replace the most basic tools for maintenance, key management, and user education. Developers can use BIP-54 to address historical legacy issues in consensus rules, yet they cannot control why operators are slow to migrate from BTCPay's old version, nor can they change the instinctive reaction of ordinary users to "wish upon the chain" when facing hackers. If the Bitcoin ecosystem continues to double down on technical conservatism while neglecting to improve discipline in software upgrades and user expectation management, the notion of security will continue to present a torn curve where front-end consensus moves forward while back-end practices stall.
From BIP-54 to BTCPay: Where Does the Security Culture Go from Here?
Reflecting on these threads: at the protocol layer, Matt Corallo's statement on the program that "the next soft fork has about an 80% chance of being BIP-54" is still just a personal estimate rather than a timeline or consensus conclusion, reflecting that Bitcoin's technical governance is undergoing a "major cleanup" targeting historical vulnerabilities in consensus rules; at the tool layer, after the BTCPay team confirmed that attacks were concentrated on old versions at the beginning of November, they promptly called on users to migrate to the version that had fixed vulnerabilities on August 7, yet they still face the reality of many nodes remaining on version 2.4.1 and earlier for a long time; at the user layer, after the Binance hack event, strangers sent small amounts of Bitcoin (less than $1) to suspected hacker addresses, writing pleas for fund recovery, promotions, and even money laundering suggestions through OP_RETURN, yet they never received a response, exposing an inertia of behavior that still harbors illusions about on-chain "moral appeals." The caution of protocol governance, the urgency of tool maintenance, and the instinctive reactions of end users are being torn into three different rhythms, indicating that even if future BIP-54 soft forks indeed advance, the imagined "security upgrade" will only provide a basic environment. The rest will depend on whether the ecosystem can establish stricter software upgrade disciplines, more realistic risk expectation management, and a cultural chain that views security as a shared responsibility among developers, service operators, and users—moving forward, whether discussions within the community on BIP-54 converge on executable paths, whether BTCPay vulnerability rectifications genuinely reduce exposure from old versions, and whether actions like begging on-chain towards hacker addresses gradually decline, these variables and whether substantial improvements occur will directly determine whether Bitcoin's security culture can move from its current torn state towards a truly comprehensive responsibility framework.
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