Source: Cointelegraph Original: "{title}"

A key communication tool for Bitcoin—a mailing list used to discuss potential protocol changes—went down for several hours on April 2, with a moderator speculating that it may have been a targeted attack assisted by bots.

For several hours on April 2 to 3, Bitcoin core developers and researchers were unable to interact on Google Groups, as Google banned the group for spam reasons.

At the time, Google's warning message stated: "The Bitcoin development mailing list has been identified as containing spam, malware, or other malicious content."

Warning message before the ban was lifted on the Bitcoin development mailing list. Source: Google

Bitcoin core developer Bryan Bishop told Cointelegraph in an interview that the ban may have been triggered by individuals or bots mass-reporting the Bitcoin mailing list through multiple accounts.

Bishop pointed out that this is a common strategy used by attackers to ban or censor a community, similar incidents have also occurred on YouTube, X, and TikTok. He added, "So, this could have been triggered by a similar method. It might just be that someone clicked the report link en masse, leading to the mailing list being banned."

Google Workspace Support's X account responded to another moderator of the Bitcoin mailing list, Ruben Somsen, at 02:23 local time on April 3, confirming that the issue had been resolved.

Bitcoin supporter and Block Inc. head Jack Dorsey also took note of this ban event and urged Google CEO Sundar Pichai to investigate the matter.

Mailing lists are typically used by a moderator to send information to subscribed users for discussion and collaboration around specific topics or common interests.

The Bitcoin mailing list is primarily used for Bitcoin core developers and researchers to discuss potential protocol changes, while the Bitcoin network securely stores over $1.6 trillion in value for global users.

Since Bitcoin's anonymous founder Satoshi Nakamoto shared the Bitcoin white paper on the Cryptography Mailing List on October 31, 2008, this mailing list has become one of the most important communication platforms for Bitcoin.

The moderators of the Bitcoin mailing list plan to continue using Google Groups.

Despite the ban incident, Bishop stated that the moderators of the Bitcoin mailing list have no intention of migrating to other platforms and will continue to communicate via email: "In fact, this particular mailing list has always been email-based, so for Bitcoin protocol developers to continue discussions via email and maintain service continuity, they must continue to use email."

The Bitcoin mailing list officially migrated to Google Groups in February 2024.

Source: Bryan Bishop

Prior to this, the mailing list was hosted on the infrastructure of the Linux Foundation, Oregon State University's Open Source Lab, and SourceForge.net.

Bishop stated that the Bitcoin forum should not be limited to a specific platform and noted that there are several other platforms discussing the development progress of Bitcoin, including GitHub and the decentralized social network Nostr.

Related: Curve Finance's trading volume reached $35 billion in the first quarter of 2025.

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