Bitcoin SV Specification & Infrastructure Standards

The Bitcoin SV Specification precisely and completely specify the rules that define Bitcoin SV. These rules are commonly referred to as the Consensus Rules.

In addition to the Bitcoin Specification there are a number of Infrastructure Standards that have emerged over the years. The P2P Network standard enables infrastructure components to communicate with each other. The RPC Standard defines a common set of methods to control and interact with a Bitcoin node.

The target audience for these documents are IT professionals that already have a solid understanding of Bitcoin. They specify the details of the infrastructure layer, namely the Bitcoin SV blockchain and Bitcoin SV network. The documents do not describe emergent behaviour based on these specifications, nor do they describe how applications or services may be built upon the infrastructure layer and are not intended to be used as an introduction to Bitcoin.

Bitcoin Specification

A full Bitcoin Specification has not been completed yet. At this time we only have specifications for the updates that have been applied.

Updates to the Bitcoin Specification (ordered by descending activation date):

• 2020-02-04 (estimated) - Genesis Upgrade
• 2019-07-24 - Quasar Protocol Upgrade
• 2018-11-15 - 2018 November Bitcoin Cash Upgrade Specification, Specification for Re-enabling old Opcodes, and Specification for the Increase of Script Non-Push Opcode Limit
• 2018-05-15 - May 2018 Hardfork Specification and Restore disabled script opcodes, May 2018
• 2017-11-13 - November 13th Bitcoin Cash Hardfork Technical Details
• 2017-08-01 - UAHF Technical Specification and UAHF Test Plan

P2P Network Standard

Full documentation of the P2P Network Standard has not been completed yet. At this time we only have documentation for the updates that have been applied.

• Protocol Configuration Message (protoconf)

RPC Standard

Full documentation of the RPC Standard has not been completed yet. At this time we only have documentation for the updates that have been applied.

• getminingcandidate

Document Information

Authors: Daniel Connolly, nChain Ltd; Brad Kristensen, nChain Ltd; Shaun O’Kane, nChain Ltd; Steve Shadders, nChain Ltd

Version:

• 2019-11-14 - Daniel Connolly - initial version, pulling in various previous specifications

All documents in this collection, are released under the terms of the Open BSV License. See the file LICENSE for more information.

The files may-2018-hardfork.md, may-2018-reenabled-opcodes.md, nov-13-hardfork-spec.md, uahf-technical-spec.md, uahf-test-plan.md, all of which are located in the updates directory, were copied from the GitHub repository at https://github.com/bitcoincashorg/bitcoincash.org/ on 14th November 2019. The files were originally licensed under the MIT License, which is available in the file MIT_LICENSE. The authors of these files were not specified within the files and are not included in the list of authors above.

The file rpc/GetMiningCandidate.md was previously released under the MIT license which is available in the file MIT_LICENSE.