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BIP ATLAS

A field guide to a few Bitcoin Improvement Proposals: what each one changes, why, and where its explanation deliberately stops. Read the idea, manipulate the mechanism, inspect the evidence.

Explanations are written independently from the proposals, pinned to an exact revision of bitcoin/bips, and checked against the proposals’ own test vectors. This is an early draft: 18 of 18 chapters exist.

  1. BIP 0039 How can a wallet backup become a list of words? Draft · source 3a10b5b · technical review applied
  2. BIP 0032 How can one seed grow an entire wallet? Draft · source 3a10b5b · technical review applied
  3. BIP 0141 + 0143 Why does a Bitcoin transaction have two identifiers? Draft · source 3a10b5b · technical review applied
  4. BIP 0173 + 0350 How does an address notice a typing mistake? Draft · source 3a10b5b · technical review applied
  5. BIP 0174 How can separate devices help sign one transaction? Draft · source 3a10b5b · technical review applied
  6. BIP 0340 What does a signature verifier actually check? Draft · source 3a10b5b · technical review applied
  7. BIP 0341 How can an output commit to several ways of spending? Draft · source 3a10b5b · technical review applied
  8. BIP 0342 What changes when Bitcoin runs a Taproot script? Draft · source 3a10b5b · technical review applied
  9. BIP 0016 How can a script hide behind a hash? Draft · source 3a10b5b · technical review applied
  10. BIP 0065 + 0068 + 0112 + 0113 When is a coin allowed to move? Draft · source 3a10b5b · technical review applied
  11. BIP 0009 + 0008 How does a soft fork switch on? Draft · source 3a10b5b · technical review applied
  12. BIP 0044 + 0084 + 0086 Where in the tree do wallet keys live? Draft · source 3a10b5b · technical review applied
  13. BIP 0380 + 0381 + 0382 + 0383 + 0384 + 0385 + 0386 How do you describe a wallet in one line? Draft · source 3a10b5b · technical review applied
  14. BIP 0327 How can many signers share one key? Draft · source 3a10b5b · technical review applied
  15. BIP 0352 Can you receive without handing out an address? Draft · source 3a10b5b · technical review applied
  16. BIP 0157 + 0158 How can a light client ask whether a block concerns it? Draft · source 3a10b5b · technical review applied
  17. BIP 0324 What changes when nodes encrypt their traffic? Draft · source 3a10b5b · technical review applied
  18. BIP 0322 How do you prove you control an address? Draft · source 3a10b5b · technical review applied