A Bitcoin Improvement Proposal (BIP) is a formal proposal to change Bitcoin. Bitcoin occasionally undergoes upgrades in the form of improvement proposals. For example, algorithms can be made more efficient, code can be simplified, compatibility with other software must be maintained, and new features can be added.
BIPP-324 will allow node-running soverign individuals to communicate with each other over encrypted connections, while the AssumeUXTO proposal will allow instant bootstrapping of the UTXO set for Bitcoin nodes.
BIP-324
“BIP-324 introduces a new Bitcoin P2P transport protocol, which features opportunistic encryption, a mild bandwidth reduction, and the ability to negotiate upgrades before exchanging application messages.”
“Since all data relayed in the Bitcoin P2P network is inherently public, and the protocol lacks a notion of cryptographic identities, peers talk to each other over unencrypted and unauthenticated connections. Nevertheless, this plaintext nature of the current P2P protocol (referred to as v1 in this document) has severe drawbacks in the presence of attackers.”
“This proposal for a new P2P protocol version (v2) aims to improve upon this by raising the costs for performing these attacks substantially, primarily through the use of unauthenticated, opportunistic transport encryption. In addition, the bytestream on the wire is made pseudorandom (i.e., indistinguishable from uniformly random bytes) to a passive eavesdropper.”
AssumeUTXO
James O’Beirne has spent the last four years working on the AssumeUTXO option. Hard work paid off as the proposal got merged. We Salute you.
“AssumeUXTO makes use of serialized UTXO sets to substantially reduce the amount of time needed to bootstrap a usable Bitcoin node with acceptable changes in security.”
“This proposal will make it more realistic for non-hobbyists to run full nodes, avoid imposing a significant storage burden, and will make no concessions in security.”
