You may be right about the relative security of Bitcoin (given that it's the oldest and one of the most audited codebases while also missing some of the more complex and potentially problematic features of other cryptocurrencies it seems like a reasonable assumption) however I'm not sure if it makes a lot of sense to compare it with other "random" open source projects.
The problem with Bitcoin is that any vulnerability can usually be exploited very easily for huge gains. You have a DDoS? Short BTC, run it, make millions. Remote code execution in the client? Steal funds, make millions. Easy and untraceable if you're careful. That's the whole drawback of the immutable ledger approach, if you get screwed the only solution is to convince everybody else to do a hardfork. If you're a bitcoin billionaire with relations in the big bitcoin shops you could get it to work, if you're a rando with a dozen bitcoins stolen from your account you're on your own.
Even something as bad as heartbleed seems almost benign in comparison since it's significantly harder to exploit, especially at a large scale.
The problem with Bitcoin is that any vulnerability can usually be exploited very easily for huge gains. You have a DDoS? Short BTC, run it, make millions. Remote code execution in the client? Steal funds, make millions. Easy and untraceable if you're careful. That's the whole drawback of the immutable ledger approach, if you get screwed the only solution is to convince everybody else to do a hardfork. If you're a bitcoin billionaire with relations in the big bitcoin shops you could get it to work, if you're a rando with a dozen bitcoins stolen from your account you're on your own.
Even something as bad as heartbleed seems almost benign in comparison since it's significantly harder to exploit, especially at a large scale.