Year 2038 Problem (Y2K38)Year 2038 Problem (Y2K38)

The Year 2038 Problem is caused by how some software systems store dates.
Most software that uses a signed 32-bit integer for time will overflow after this exact moment:

03:14:07 on 19 January 2038

One second later, many systems will wrap around to:

20:45:52 on 13 December 1901

Bitcoin and the Timestamp FieldBitcoin and the Timestamp Field

Bitcoin stores the timestamp in the block header.

timestamp = number of seconds since 01 January 1970 (UTC)

If we store this date using 31 bits, we run out of space precisely at:
2038-01-19 03:14:07

One Second Later…One Second Later…

Luckily, Bitcoin stores timestamps as 32-bit unsigned integers,
giving us time until the year 2106.

Fixing this isn’t a small update, it will likely require a hard fork.

The timestamp is part of the block header, which means any change affects the block hash itself.

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