River Intelligence

What Is Bitcoin?

How to Buy Bitcoin

Sending and Receiving Bitcoin

Crypto vs. Bitcoin: What You Need to Know

How Do Bitcoin Transactions Work?

What Are Public and Private Keys?

Is Bitcoin Fair?

What Can You Buy With Bitcoin?

Bitcoin vs. Gold

Bitcoin vs. Ethereum

Bitcoin Privacy and Anonymity

Understanding Fiat Currencies

Understanding Bitcoin Fungibility

Bitcoin's Competitors

What Is Encryption?

How Bitcoin Can Scale

Bitcoin's Cultural Significance

Can Bitcoin Be Banned?

Is Bitcoin Safe?

Bitcoin as a Medium of Exchange

The Environmental Impact of Bitcoin

On-Chain vs. Off-Chain Bitcoin Transactions

Why People Invest in Bitcoin

Why Don't Altcoins Threaten Bitcoin?

Can Bitcoin's Hard Cap of 21 Million Be Changed?

The Myths of Bitcoin

Bitcoin's Predecessors

How Many Satoshis Are in a Bitcoin?

Who Creates New Bitcoin?

How Bitcoin Fees Work

What Is Money?

Bitcoin as an Investment

How to Avoid Bitcoin Scams

Can Bitcoin Be Hacked?

How Many People Use Bitcoin?

Bitcoin Events and Conferences in 2023

Who Owns the Most Bitcoin in 2023?

How Do I Get Bitcoin?

How Much Bitcoin Does the Government Have?

Bitcoin's Network Effect

➤Explore more in Bitcoin Basics

More ▼ Less ▲

Bitcoin Markets & Price

Why Does Bitcoin Have Value?

What Is Backing Bitcoin?

What Is Market Making?

Should I Buy Bitcoin Now in 2023?

Why Is Bitcoin Volatile?

What Is Dollar Cost Averaging Bitcoin?

Who Are the Actors in Bitcoin Markets?

The History of Monetary Collapse in Zimbabwe

How Is the Bitcoin Price Determined?

How Do Macroeconomic Events Affect Bitcoin?

What Is a Bear Market?

How Much of the World's Money Is in Bitcoin?

What Is a Bull Market?

What Is a Bitcoin ETF?

What Are Stablecoins?

What Is Collateralized Lending?

How to Read a Candlestick Chart

What Is Technical Analysis?

Bitcoin and the Stock-to-Flow (S2F) Model

The Efficient Market Hypothesis

Bitcoin Fundamental Analysis

Bitcoin Investment Performance Metrics

Understanding Trading Order Types

What Is the Bitcoin Market?

Will Deflation Hurt the Economy?

Real Bitcoin vs. Bitcoin Derivatives

Brokerages vs. Exchanges

How to Read a Bitcoin Depth Chart

Portfolio Management

Leveraged Bitcoin Trading

Bitcoin Flash Crashes

Will Inflation Hurt the Economy?

➤Explore more in Bitcoin Markets and Price

More ▼ Less ▲

How to Store Bitcoin

Introduction to Bitcoin Wallets

How Bitcoin Wallets Work

What Is Bitcoin Cold Storage?

How to Get Started with Bitcoin Self Custody

What Is Bitcoin Custody?

Bitcoin Privacy Tools

Choosing a Bitcoin Wallet

Traditional Bank Account vs. Bitcoin Custodial Storage

What Happens to Lost Bitcoin?

➤Explore more in How to Store Bitcoin

More ▼ Less ▲

Bitcoin Mining

What Is Bitcoin Mining?

What Is a Bitcoin Halving?

What Will Happen After All Bitcoin Are Mined?

Buying a Bitcoin Mining Rig? What You Need to Know

Is Bitcoin Mining Profitable?

Why Does Bitcoin Mining Use Energy?

Proof-of-Work (PoW) vs Proof-of-Stake (PoS)

What Is Proof-of-Work?

Bitcoin Mining Taxes and Regulation

How Bitcoin Mining Pools Work

What Is Hosted Mining?

What Influence Do Bitcoin Miners Have Over the Network?

Is Bitcoin Mining Legal?

What Is MEV? Does it Apply to Bitcoin Mining?

Can Cloud Mining Be Trusted?

Should You Buy Bitcoin Miners or Bitcoin?

Can I Mine Bitcoin on my Phone?

Is a USB Bitcoin Miner Profitable?

Bitcoin's Energy Consumption

How Long Does It Take to Mine One Bitcoin

➤Explore more in Bitcoin Mining

More ▼ Less ▲

Bitcoin Taxes & Estate Planning

Bitcoin Tax Accounting

Investing Bitcoin in a Trust

Investing in Bitcoin as a Family Office

Investing Bitcoin in Retirement Accounts

What Happens to Your Bitcoin When You Die?

Why Institutional Treasuries Should Consider Bitcoin

Is Bitcoin Legal?

Can Bitcoin Be Seized?

What Is a 401(k) Plan?

Roth IRA vs. Traditional IRA

Investing Bitcoin in an LLC

➤Explore more in Bitcoin Taxes and Estate Planning

More ▼ Less ▲

Bitcoin & Blockchain Technology

What Is a Blockchain?

What Is a Bitcoin Node?

What Is the Lightning Network?

The Benefits of Blockchain

What Is the Double Spend Problem?

How to Read Bitcoin Data

What Is Bitcoin Core?

What Is a Bitcoin Address, and How Can You Get One?

What Is Taro in Bitcoin?

What Is Taproot and How Does It Benefit Bitcoin?

How to Run a Bitcoin Node

What Are Bitcoin Forks?

What Are Bitcoin Smart Contracts?

What Are Partially Signed Bitcoin Transactions (PSBTs)?

What Is a Bitcoin Improvement Proposal (BIP)?

The Difference Between Bitcoin and Blockchain

What Do Schnorr Signatures Do for Bitcoin?

Bitcoin's UTXO Model

What Is Segregated Witness (SegWit)?

What Is the Byzantine Generals Problem?

Why Should I Run a Bitcoin Node?

How Bitcoin Solves the Double Spend Problem

Pull Systems vs. Push Systems

How Bitcoin Uses Cryptography

The Risks of Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDC)

What Is OP_VAULT and How Will it Benefit Bitcoin Users?

Looking Ahead: Lightning Payments in 2025

➤Explore more in Bitcoin and Blockchain Technology

More ▼ Less ▲

Glossary

Lightning Network

Public Key

SegWit

➤Explore more in Glossary

Build your Bitcoin wealth with River

Get Started

No-fee recurring buys

Bitcoin mining

Phone support

Learning Center
Glossary
B
Bitcoin Improvement Proposal (BIP)

Bitcoin Improvement Proposal (BIP)

A Bitcoin Improvement Proposal (BIP) is a formal proposal to change Bitcoin. Upgrades and security improvements enter the Bitcoin codebase via BIPs. Upgrades such as SegWit, HD Wallets, PSBT and more were all introduced via BIPs, which then underwent a review process and community discussion before being accepted. However, not all BIPs propose code changes. Some, such as BIP 39’s standard of mnemonic phrase backups, establish standards to be used by other Bitcoin related projects.

Smaller changes to Bitcoin, such as bug fixes, code refactoring, or minor efficiency improvements are not included in BIPs. Rather, these changes are submitted directly to Bitcoin’s codebase as proposed code changes.

Related Terms

SegWit

Segregated Witness (SegWit) is a soft-fork upgrade to Bitcoin which was activated in 2017. SegWit fixed the problem of transaction malleability, and paved the way for the implementation of the Lightning Network and many other upgrades.

Learn more

Hierarchical Deterministic (HD) Wallet

A Hierarchical Deterministic Wallet is the term used to describe a wallet which uses a seed to derive many public and private keys. These keys are generated in a deterministic way, and are used to send and receive bitcoin.

Learn more

Partially Signed Bitcoin Transactions (PSBT)

Partially Signed Bitcoin Transaction is a bitcoin standard which facilitates the portability of unsigned transactions. This allows multiple parties to easily sign the same transaction.

Learn more

Mnemonic

A mnemonic phrase is a list of 12-24 words used to back up a wallet. These words can be decoded to yield the seed of a wallet, which generates public and private keys for the wallet.