Bitcoin Improvement Proposals – the Taproot and Schnorr proposals

A new project has been launched by Bitcoin developer Anthony Towns – the evaluation of “Bitcoin Improvement Proposals” (BIPs). Over 200 developers participate in testing and identifying the evaluation of the Taproot and Schnorr upgrade proposals.

It is the first such experiment involving the Bitcoin blockchain to date.
Towns, who works for Xapo, said it is an attempt to involve a large number of people in the evaluation process.

Being the first such project, no one knows exactly how the process will go. In general, proposals for improvement (BIPs) are available for public evaluation. Anyone has the opportunity to identify potential vulnerabilities and provide feedback.

BIP – Bitcoin Improvement Proposals

The project description admits that “many people are not familiar with the BIP evaluation process and that the system of proposal adoption can be considered complicated”

Square Crypto project manager Steve Lee believes that the involvement of as many developers as possible should be encouraged.

“I’ve seen people from all over the world register and there are many names I haven’t heard before,”

he said.

Discussions take place on Internet Relay Chat (IRC), a completely open discussion group – anyone is invited to join.

When it comes to major code changes, consensus is hard to come by. Towns explained that this is a three-step process: identifying change needs, writing code and adopting improvements.

The group of 200 developers is currently discussing two older proposals, Taproot and Schnoor. Towns expects their evaluation to take place over a two-month period.

The last major BIP adopted for Bitcoin was Segregated Witness (SegWit), an update that paved the way for the Lighning Network.