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What goes on behind the scenes of Bitcoin's development

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A brief history of Bitcoin: Where it came from and where it's going in 10 minutes

The Incomplete History of Bitcoin Development

Original author: 0xB10C

Ah Jian, ethereum enthusiast & NBSP;

A time line

Early 2007: Satoshi Nakamoto starts developing bitcoin

Satoshi Nakamoto began writing the code for bitcoin. This is according to a Cryptography mailing list from Satoshi Nakamoto dated November 17, 2008:

"I'm sure I've worked out all these details in the last year and a half of programming."

See: E-mail (metzdowd.com) & have spent And & have spent e-mail (nakamotoinstitute.org)

November 1, 2008: Bitcoin white paper released

Satoshi Nakamoto published the white paper in the Cryptography email group:

"I have been working on a completely new digital cash system that is completely peer-to-peer, with no third party that users need to trust."

See: E-mail (metzdowd.com) & have spent And & have spent E-mail (nakamotoinstitute.org), and white papers

Between January 3 and 9, 2009: Bitcoin's Genesis block is mined

The genesis block's time stamp is January 9.

The Coinbase transaction for this block (the type of transaction where new coins are issued) contains the famous quote:

"The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks"

See: block browser, encyclopedia entry

January 9, 2009: Bitcoin V0.1 software is released

Satoshi Nakamoto wrote in the Cryptography email group:

"I released the first version of Bitcoin software. Bitcoin is a new electronic cash system that uses a peer-to-peer network to prevent multiple payments. It is completely decentralized, with no server-side and no centralized authority."

See: e - mail

December 16, 2009: Bitcoin V0.2 software release & NBSP;

Martti Malmi (Sirius-M) added initial support for Linux. Other new features include mining using multiple cores of the CPU and initial support for using agents.

See: bitcointalk.org

July 6, 2010: Bitcoin V0.3 software is released

Laszlo Hanyecz (Bitcoin Pizza Guy) added support for macOS. Other new features include a JSON-RPC interface and a new Daemon mode. Users help translate the software's graphical interface into German, Dutch and Italian.

See: bitcointalk.org

July 15, 2010: Bitcoin V0.3.1 software (patch) is released

Fixed various bugs. Gavin Andresen started to contribute.

See: bitcointalk.org

July 17, 2010: Bitcoin V0.3.2 software is released

Satoshi nakamoto added checkpoints as a safety measure. A checkpoint is a lock that the block hash of a certain height must be a certain, or it is rejected. Nakamoto wrote:

"I would probably add a checkpoint with each new release from now on. If the software has already decided which is the universally accepted blockchain, there is no need to leave an extremely confusing opportunity that could be reversed in a few months."

See: Bitcointalk.org, Adding (Diff on GitHub)

July 25, 2010: Bitcoin V0.3.3 software is released

This release adds the first consensus level change. The bitcoin software began to follow the chain with the most accumulated work. Before that, follow the longest chain in the literal sense.

See: Bitcointalk.org, Consensus change (Diff on GitHub)

Through the summer of 2010

Several versions of Bitcoin V0.3.xx were released during this period

August 15, 2010: Fatal overflow vulnerability is fixed

Satoshi Nakamoto released a patch in V0.3.9 (ISH) telling users and miners to restructure blocks with overflow errors.

See: bitcointalk.org

August 22, 2010: Alert system introduced

Satoshi nakamoto started developing an alarm system, which he plans to add in V0.3.11. He wrote:

"I've been writing an alarm system. The alerts broadcast over the network and work in some versions of the software. The messages are signed with a private key that only I know."

"Nodes occasionally going into temporary outages can be scary, but it's better than the shock of finding all your money sucked out of you."

"The system can be scaled back at a time when we haven't found any new bugs in a long time, when thorough security checks haven't found any problems. I'm not arguing that we'll use it forever. But Bitcoin is still in a beta phase."

See: bitcointalk.org

December 12, 2010: Satoshi Nakamoto posts his last post

Satoshi Nakamoto posted his last post on bitcointalk.org. He added some DoS restrictions and removed the aforementioned alarm system security mode.

"There is still a lot of work to be done on DoS protection, but I am developing a backup quick build pack in case of emergencies; more complex ideas will come later. The software built on this package is V0.3.19."

See: bitcointalk.org

December 19, 2010: Development moves to GitHub;

Active development and issue tracking for Bitcoin software moved to GitHub.

See: First issue recorded on GitHub

April 23, 2011: Satoshi Nakamoto speaks for the last time

Allegedly from Satoshi Nakamoto's last email to Mike Hearn:

"I've got other things to do. Gavin and everyone will get this done."

See: Email conversation on Pastebin.com

March to June 2011: New contributors join

Several new contributors joined: TheBlueMatt (3 March), SIPA (12 March), Laanwj (15 March) and Gmaxwell (18 June).

For their first merge request see: TheBlueMatt, SIPA, Laanwj, GMaxwell

August 19, 2011: First BIP

The first BIP "BIP 1: Purpose and Guidelines for BIP" appeared.

See: BIP 1 on GitHub

September 23, 2011: Bitcoin V0.4 is launched

With V0.4, the main new feature is wallet encryption.

See: Update notes

November 21, 2011: Bitcoin-Qt V0.5 is released

New features are the new QT graphical interface and a major patch for wallet encryption (CVE-2011-4447)

See: Update Notes, CVE-2011-4447

November 2011 ~ April 2012: P2SH and other proposed work

Several proposals (OP_EVAL, P2SH, OP_CHV) are designed to allow the recipient of a transaction to specify a script to spend money on. P2SH is implemented on Bitcoin-Qt V0.5.4. The other two were abandoned.

See: BIP 12: OP_EVAL, OP_EVAL merge request, OP_EVAL recursive problem, BIP 16: P2SH, BIP 17: OP_CHECKHASHVERIFY

March 30, 2012: Bitcoin-Qt V0.6 is released

New features include address QR codes, an implementation of BIP30 (a security fix for an attack involving copying Coinbase transactions), and fixing memory related denial of service attack vectors.

See: Update notes

September 17, 2012: Bitcoin-Qt V0.7 is released

Includes implementations of BIP22, BIP34, and BIP35, as well as many changes to the graphical interface, and RPC code for networking.

See: Update notes

September 27, 2012: Bitcoin Foundataion is announced

Gavin Andresen has announced the formation of the Bitcoin Foundation.

See: post at bitcointalk.org

February 19, 2013: Bitcoin-Qt V0.8 is released

This update migrates the storage of blockchain from BerkleyDB database format to LevelIDB database. Ultraprune (Extreme Pruning) was implemented by SiPA (Pieter Wuille), who separated the UTXO collection from the blockchain database.

See: Update bulletin

March 11, 2013: Unexpected hard fork

An unexpected hard fork occurred, separating the nodes of V0.8 from those of older versions.

See: BIP 50: Post hoc report on the March 2013 chain split incident, Bitcoin.org Web Alert

December 12, 2013: Software branding repackaged

The Bitcoin-Qt software was repackaged using a new name for Bitcoin Core.

See: PR on GitHub

March 19, 2014: Bitcoin Core V0.9 is released

Among the new features: OP_RETURN opcodes can write data to the blockchain, but also render the associated UTXO unusable. In addition, autotools was used as a build system, while Bitcoin-CLI (command line tool) was introduced as an RPC client.

See: Update notes

Sometime in 2014: Chaincode Labs launches & NBSP;

Alex Morcos and Suhas Daftuar founded Chaincode Labs in 2014 to create a space where engineers and scientists can support decentralized digital currency development.

October 23, 2014: Blockstream launched & NBSP;

Adam Back, Matt Corallo, Greg Maxwell, Pieter Wuille, and others founded Blockstream and released their side chain whitepaper.

See: Why did we start Blockstream?

February 16, 2015: Bitcoin Core V0.10.0 is released

Important updates include the synchronization method to synchronize the block headers first, the REST interface, and the Bitcoin-TX module for creating and manipulating transactions.

See: Update notes

February 2015: Lightning Network white paper issued & NBSP;

Joseph Poon and Thaddeus Dryja have released the first draft of the Lightning Network white Paper

See: Lightning Network white paper

April 15, 2015: MIT DCI was founded & NBSP;

MIT Media Lab launched the Digital Currency Initiative (DCI). DCI is a research community focused on cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology.

See: DCI Launch bulletin

July 12, 2015: Bitcoin Core V0.11.0 is released

This version of the software includes block file pruning as a major feature.

See: Update notes

February 3, 2016: BIP 2

Luke Dashjr drafted BIP 2, proposing a more clearly defined BIP process. The proposal was accepted by the community

See: BIP 2: BIP process revision

February 23, 2016: Bitcoin Core V0.12.0 is released

The major updates are the introduction of libsecp, SendHeader, opt-in RBF (BIP 125), and transaction memory pool limits.

See: Update notes

April 15, 2016: Bitcoin Core V0.12.1 is released

This version includes BIP 9 (version identification logic) and the OP_CHECKSEQUENCEVERIFY soft fork definition.

See: Update notes

August 23, 2016: Bitcoin Core V0.13.0 is released

This includes changes in preparation for SEGWit (Segregated Witness), compressed block functionality, filtering of transaction pools based on fee prices, HD wallet lag, and CPFP transaction selection algorithms.

See: Update notes

October 27, 2016: Bitcoin Core V0.13.1 is released

This version includes SegWit soft fork.

See: Update notes

November 1, 2016: Alarm system retires

The network layer alert system represents a large centralized force in Bitcoin that is now in the past.

See: the announcement

March 8, 2017: Bitcoin Core V0.14 is released

This version of the software greatly improves the first download block speed.

See: Update notes

August 24, 2017: SegWit activation

SegWit is activated on the bitcoin main network.

September 14, 2017: V0.15 released

This version of the software has added a better fee estimation function, the ability to add fees in the graphical interface, multiple wallets and script caching.

See: Update notes

Nov 11, 2017: V0.15.1 released

This release focuses on the security of P2P networks to prevent future network forks, fixes some bugs, and optimizes and upgrades for the 0.15.x series.

See: Update notes

February 26, 2018: Bitcoin Core V0.16 is released

This is primarily to add SegWit support to the Bitcoin Core Wallet.

See: Update notes

October 3, 2018: Bitcoin Core V0.17 is released

This version adds some functionality to the wallet. One is partial signature Bitcoin exchange (PSBT).

See: Update notes

March 20, 2019: Square Crypto was founded & NBSP;

Jack Dorsey has announced that Square Crypto is hiring three to four engineers and one designer full-time to open source the Bitcoin ecosystem.

See: tweet

May 2, 2019: Bitcoin Core V0.18 is released

This update includes a number of new features and some minor changes.

See: Update notes

May 6, 2019: Taproot proposed & NBSP;

Pieter Wuille proposed multiple BIPs to implement Schnorr signatures and Taproot in Bitcoin to improve the privacy, efficiency and flexibility of Bitcoin smart contracts.

See: Mail group post

August 9, 2019: Bitcoin Core V0.18.1 is released

This mini-release adds new features, multiple patches and performance upgrades, as well as updated translations.

See: Update notes

19 August 2019: Miniscript is launched

Pieter Wuille came up with Miniscript, a more user-friendly language for programming bitcoin scripts.

See: Mail group post, project page

November 24, 2019: Bitcoin Core V0.19.0.1 is released

This release adds new features, multiple patches and performance upgrades, as well as updated translations.

See: Update notes

March 9, 2020: Bitcoin Core V0.19.1 is released

This release fixes several bugs and improves performance.

See: Update notes

June 3, 2020: Bitcoin Core V0.20.0 is released

This release fixes several bugs and improves performance.

See: Update notes

August 1, 2020: Bitcoin Core V0.20.1 is released

The minor updates include a different way of dealing with rogue peers, wallet alerts, and PSBT support for UTXO with and without Witness.

See: Update notes

2020: Development awards for Bitcoin projects and individual contributors

Companies including BitMEX, Square Crypto, OKCoin, BTSE and Kraken, as well as the Human Rights Fundation, Paradigm and Coinbase exchanges, There are multiple development awards for Bitcoin projects and individual contributors.

See: Square Crypto Grants, BitMEX Grants, OKCoin Grants, Coinbase Grants, Polylunar Grant Tracker, Bitcoin Words Grant Tracker

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