Bitcoin XT
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/13/Bitcoinxt.png/220px-Bitcoinxt.png)
Bitcoin XT is a fork of the bitcoin Core reference client. It achieved significant attention within the bitcoin community in 2015 amid a contentious debate among core developers over increasing the blocksize cap.[1] [2]
History
![]() | This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (August 2015) |
On June 10, 2014 Mike Hearn published a Bitcoin Improvement Proposal (BIP 64), calling for the addition of "a small P2P protocol extension that performs UTXO lookups given a set of outpoints."[3]
On December 27, 2014 Hearn released version 0.10 of the client, with the BIP 64 changes.[4] It was intended to support queries for his Lighthouse crowdfunding platform project.[citation needed]
On June 22, 2015, Gavin Andresen published BIP 101 calling for an increase in the maximum block size. The changes would activate a fork allowing 8 MB blocks (with doublings every two years) once 75% of a stretch of 1000 mined blocks is achieved after the beginning of 2016.[5]
On August 6, 2015 Andresen's BIP101 proposal was merged into the XT codebase.[6]
On August 15, 2015 version 0.11A was released to the public.[7][8]
Bip 101 was reverted[9] and the 2-MB blocksize bump of Bitcoin Classic was applied instead.
Reception
![]() | This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (August 2015) |
The August 2015 release of XT received widespread media coverage. The Guardian wrote that "bitcoin is facing civil war".[1] Reason wrote that "Bitcoin XT represents a technical and philosophical divergence."[10] Wired wrote that "Bitcoin XT exposes the extremely social — extremely democratic — underpinnings of the open source idea, an approach that makes open source so much more powerful than technology controlled by any one person or organization."[11]
External links
- Bitcoin XT on GitHub
References
[12] [13] [14] [15][16] [17][18] [19]
- ^ a b Alex Hern. "Bitcoin's forked: chief scientist launches alternative proposal for the currency". the Guardian. Retrieved 20 August 2015.
- ^ Grace Caffyn (August 17, 2015). "Bitcoin 'Forked' in Contentious Bid to Address Scaling Concerns". CoinDesk. Retrieved 20 August 2015.
- ^ "bips/bip-0064.mediawiki at master · bitcoin/bips · GitHub". GitHub.
- ^ https://github.com/bitcoinxt/bitcoinxt/releases/tag/v0.10
- ^ "bips/bip-0101.mediawiki at master · bitcoin/bips · GitHub". GitHub.
- ^ https://github.com/bitcoinxt/bitcoinxt/commit/946e3ba8c7806a66c2b834d3817ff0c986c0811b
- ^ Mike Hearn. "Why is Bitcoin forking? — Faith and future". Medium.
- ^ https://github.com/bitcoinxt/bitcoinxt/releases/tag/v0.11A
- ^ https://github.com/bitcoinxt/bitcoinxt/pull/117
- ^ "New Version of Bitcoin Threatens to Split Cryptocurrency Loyalists". Reason magazine. Retrieved 2015-08-25.
- ^ Cade Metz (19 August 2015). "The Bitcoin Schism Shows the Genius of Open Source". WIRED.
- ^ Paul Vigna (17 August 2015). "BitBeat: Bitcoin's Noisy Size Debate Reaches a Hard Fork". WSJ. Retrieved 20 August 2015.
- ^ "Bitcoin XT: What Is It and Why Was It Released?". Bloomberg.com. 19 August 2015. Retrieved 20 August 2015.
- ^ "Bitcoin price crashes amid dispute over Bitcoin XT split". International Business Times UK. Retrieved 20 August 2015.
- ^ "Developers split over bitcoin's future as rival software emerges". Reuters via Yahoo News. 18 August 2015. Retrieved 20 August 2015.
- ^ "Bitcoin XT launches as solution to block size debate - Business Insider". Business Insider. 17 August 2015. Retrieved 20 August 2015.
- ^ "Bitcoin could split in debate over currency's future". BBC News. Retrieved 20 August 2015.
- ^ "Forking_Hell". The Economist. 22 August 2015.
- ^ Olga Kharif (18 August 2015). "Bitcoin Is Having an Identity Crisis". Bloomberg.com.