BIP

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Bitcoin Improvement Proposal (BIP) are technical documents that address issues or introduce a wider change in the Bitcoin core client/protocol. Typically, developers will author a BIP & Miners will vote on it. the BIP process borrows from the IETF’s Request For Comment (RFC). Per BIP 2: “We intend BIPs to be the primary mechanisms for proposing new features, for collecting community input on an issue, and for documenting the design decisions that have gone into Bitcoin. The BIP author is responsible for building consensus within the community and documenting dissenting opinions.”

Voting comes down to participants (ones with a lot of weight are miners & mining pools since they carry the network on their backs). Yes/No votes are usually settled in Blockchains (a yes is added at least 30 times). Votes are proportional to hashing power attributed to the network. A yes majority equals 55% of miners.

All BIPs can be viewed on Github: https://github.com/bitcoin/bips

BIP Life Cycle: