BIPs

BIPs, or Bitcoin Improvement Proposals, are design documents that describe proposed changes or additions to the Bitcoin protocol, its transaction formats, scripting language, or related standards and processes. They serve as a structured mechanism for proposing, discussing, and documenting improvements before they are implemented in software.

The BIP process is community-driven and open. Anyone can draft a BIP and submit it to the Bitcoin Improvement Proposals repository on GitHub. Each BIP is assigned a number, has a title, author(s), and includes a motivation, technical specification, and references. Proposals are categorized into Standards Track (changes that affect consensus or user-facing interfaces), Informational (guidance or descriptions not affecting consensus), and Process (the procedures governing BIPs themselves).

Lifecycle: a BIP starts as a draft, undergoes public discussion, and may be accepted or rejected by consensus. If accepted, it may reach Active or Final status and, for protocol changes, requires client implementations and network-wide upgrade to take effect. BIPs are not standards in the legal sense; they are working documents that guide development and interoperability.

Notable examples include BIP-32 (Hierarchical Deterministic Wallets), BIP-39 (Mnemonic seed phrases), BIP-44 (Multi-Account Hierarchy for Deterministic Wallets), and BIP-141 (Segregated Witness, a significant protocol upgrade).

The BIP repository is maintained by Bitcoin developers and contributors. BIPs aim to be technology-agnostic, thoroughly reasoned, and reproducible, providing a transparent record of the rationale, design choices, and implementation notes behind proposed changes.