There have been variants of a bottom bar interface being tested in Chrome for Android for several years at this point. First was 'Chrome Home,' which moved the entire address bar to the bottom of the screen, which was later revamped into 'Duplex,' then renamed to 'Duet' to avoid confusion with the Google Assistant feature of the same name. Now it appears the long-running interface experiment is gone for good.
Chrome duet mode bottom tab changer navigation removed on Chrome 84 for Android. I was used to with the UI. Now back to top navigation, i don't like it.
Yes, it seems to be a bug on this version. I noticed it happens when we closed all tabs and shut Chrome. If you open one tab (even keep it on homepage) then it doesn't happen.