Peter Todd and the Expansion of Bitcoin

As Bitcoin trickles into the mainstream, it’s easy to forget that it is still in Beta. The source code is constantly evolving with daily updates to the development repository, which has helped make it the most successful decentralized value store and immutable record that we have ever encountered. These updates range from minor changes, such as syntax and documentation updates, to major fixes that affect Bitcoin’s functionality.
Major development proposals are formulated into BIPS, or Bitcoin Improvement Proposals. BIPS are formal proposals to change how Bitcoin will function by making modifications to the code base. BIPS consensus is determined by developer approval, unit tests, and exploration of possible edge cases.
Sometimes there are competing implementations proposed to solve similar or identical issues, like the decision to implement P2SH, where the pros and cons must be weighed to choose the best candidate. On one hand the lengthy process of accepting new BIPS stalls Bitcoin progress, but with open-source development, it is best to seek the input of all contributors and perform rigorous testing to establish stability and security throughout the codebase, which helps avoid potential risk to users.
BIPS often start from a discussion on the developer mailing list or on Github. Such discussions are what inspired Peter Todd, a long time contributor to Bitcoin core and related projects, who is currently working towards getting his proposal, BIP 65 titled: OP_CHECKLOCKTIMEVERIFY, accepted. The proposal suggests adding an additionalopcode, which is a function or command in the Bitcoin scripting language.

This post was published at Coin Telegraph on 2014-12-24.