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Low 38 Bitcoin

Stop enforcing ancestor size/count limits

Public commit record

What the developer wrote

Authored by Suhas Daftuar

60/100 · Adequate
Stop enforcing ancestor size/count limits

The cluster limits should be sufficient.

Co-Authored-By: Gregory Sanders <gsanders87@gmail.com>
✓ Descriptive subject✓ Names a concrete action or component✓ Provides an explanatory body
The short version

What changed, and why it matters

This commit removes Bitcoin Core's old 'ancestor count/size' mempool limits, leaving only newer 'cluster' and 'descendant' limits. The change is intentional and part of a broader mempool policy simplification. It does not by itself create a known exploit, but it changes what transaction shapes are allowed into the mempool. A miner or node operator relying on the old ancestor limits now has different protections, which could matter if the remaining cluster limits are weaker in some edge cases.

Recommended action

Treat as a deliberate policy change rather than a vulnerability patch. Node operators and miners should review whether their local -limitclustercount / -limitclustersize settings provide adequate DoS protection for their use cases. Developers should verify that cluster-limit logic covers the transaction topologies previously blocked by ancestor limits, especially deep or bushy unconfirmed chains.

Security signals we found

01

Removal of long-standing mempool admission policy (ancestor count/size)

02

Policy change, not consensus change: does not alter block validation rules

03

Remaining protections rely on cluster size limits and descendant limits

04

Functional tests that specifically exercised ancestor-limit rejection are deleted

05

No explicit security framing or CVE reference in commit or supplied references

Risk score

Why this scored 38/100

Our methodology →
Potential impact 8/30
Exploitability 5/25
Stealth signal 6/15
Affected reach 10/15
Confidence 6/10
Evidence quality 3/5
Human-validated context

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