Bitcoin Core warns: wallet migration bug in v30.0–30.1 can delete wallets — don’t migrate legacy wallets until 30.2 Bitcoin Core developers issued an urgent warning after discovering a rare but serious bug in versions 30.0 and 30.1 that can erase wallet files during the legacy wallet migration process. In a Jan. 5 post on X, the Bitcoin Core Project said that “under rare circumstances, migrating a legacy (BDB) wallet can delete all wallet files on the same node. If those wallets aren’t backed up, this can result in a loss of funds.” What’s affected - Only the legacy (Berkeley DB, or BDB) wallet migration process is implicated. Other functionality — including running a node without wallets and using existing non-legacy wallets — is unaffected. - The team says a fix is planned for Bitcoin Core 30.2 and strongly advises users not to migrate legacy wallets with 30.0 or 30.1 until that release is available. - Practical guidance from the project: back up wallet files before attempting any migration. Why this matters Legacy wallets were the default wallet type until April 2022 (before v23.0). Crucially, Core v30.0 “explicitly stopped loading or creating BDB legacy wallets,” meaning users who upgraded to v30 and still had legacy wallets often faced only one practical option: migrate. That made the migration pathway far from an obscure edge case for some users. How the bug can trigger According to reports and user analysis in the public issue threads, the migration must fail in a particular way for the destructive behavior to occur. One plausible scenario: a node set to prune blocks may have the legacy wallet unloaded when migration runs; a failed wallet-load step can then send the process into a cleanup routine that — incorrectly — deletes the entire wallet directory, wiping out other wallets and even rollback backups created during migration. Community reaction The disclosure capped a simmering GitHub thread and a burst of commentary on X. Some users claimed the problem had been reported weeks earlier but was difficult for maintainers to reproduce. X user @B__T__C said “several users had been reporting it for over two weeks.” Greg Tonoski (@GregTonoski) echoed frustration over pre-release warnings and argued the episode shows a disconnect between developers and some users, tagging core maintainers including @achow101. Others pushed back on how alarming the incident is. X account @w_s_bitcoin noted Core v30 “currently” represents roughly one-fifth of nodes and said that “reportedly only one single user was affected by this bug,” calling it “a shitty bug” that nevertheless hasn’t produced known bitcoin losses so far. The community debate centers on how to interpret “rare” and how many users were actually put into a forced migration path by v30’s changes. What users should do now - Do not migrate legacy (BDB) wallets with Bitcoin Core 30.0 or 30.1. - If you must migrate, wait for the 30.2 release that contains the fix. - In all cases, ensure you have current, verified backups of all wallet files before attempting any upgrade or migration. Market note At press time, Bitcoin traded at $91,717. Read more AI-generated news on: undefined/news

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