21 BTCBIP (Bitcoin Improvement Proposal)
In plain words
A BIP is a public design document that proposes a change or a standard for Bitcoin. Writing a BIP does not change Bitcoin; node operators decide by running software that implements it.
Kinds of BIPs
Notable BIPs
- BIP 32: HD wallets (one seed derives many keys)
- BIP 39: mnemonic seed phrases
- BIP 125: Replace-By-Fee
- BIP 141/143/144: SegWit
- BIP 173 / 350: bech32 / bech32m addresses
- BIP 174: PSBT
- BIP 340/341/342: Schnorr, Taproot, Tapscript
Proposals under debate, such as BIP-110 (signalled by some nodes), are tracked with their current status on the Code page.
See also
- Bitcoin CoreBitcoin Core is the main software that runs the Bitcoin network, the direct descendant of Satoshi's original program. It is free and open source, maintained by volunteers and grant-funded developers.
- SegWit (Segregated Witness)SegWit was a 2017 upgrade that moved signatures into a separate part of the transaction. It fixed a long-standing bug, made room for more transactions and opened the door to the Lightning Network.
- TaprootTaproot is a 2021 upgrade that added Schnorr signatures and a way to hide unused spending conditions. Complex wallets, such as multisig, can look like ordinary single-key payments.
- Seed phraseA seed phrase is a list of 12 or 24 ordinary words that can recreate all the keys of a wallet. Whoever has the words has the bitcoin, so write them on paper or metal and never type them into a website.
- PSBTPartially Signed Bitcoin Transaction: a standard file format to pass a transaction between wallets for signing.
References
- BIP 1 (github.com/bitcoin/bips) github.com
- BIP 2 (github.com/bitcoin/bips) github.com
- BIP 32 (github.com/bitcoin/bips) github.com
- BIP 39 (github.com/bitcoin/bips) github.com
- github.com/bitcoin/bips github.com