Bitcoin QT database corrupted Mac

Bitcoin developers and their counterparts backing the younger, rival virtual currency Litecoin have thrown together a virtual bounty worth around $10, 000 for anyone who can figure out what's causing a data corruption issue in certain Bitcoin and Litecoin wallets on Macs.

As some first noted several months ago, the introduction of the LevelDB key store database into the Bitcoin-qt client versions 0.8.x (currently at 0.8.5) coincided with a data corruption bug affecting Bitcoin users on Mac OS X machines.

The mystery bug impacts an important component of the wallet since LevelDB is used to store the Bitcoin blockchain, the public ledger of all transactions on the Bitcoin network. It's a pain for users because rebuilding the database can take hours. And since the issue is common to wallets on Mac OS X for both currencies, developers from each camp — who have yet to solve the problem themselves — are hoping to crowdsource an answer.

According to Warren Togami, a developer who contributes to both Bitcoin and Litecoin, the unusual step of offering a sizeable bounty has been taken because the bug is considered critical enough to stifle Bitcoin uptake