Cryptocurrency Bitcoin SV [BSV] ー history and prospects of hard fork

The question of who controls the ability to add code to the Bitcoin Core GitHub repository comes up again and again, with enviable frequency. Over the years, the ability to add code has been cited by various parties as the “central point of control” of the Bitcoin protocol, but I believe this framing is a red herring that could foster an authoritarian perspective—a model that does not apply to Bitcoin. To the layperson, it is of course not obvious why this is the case, so the purpose of this article is to explain how Bitcoin Core works and, at a higher level, how the Bitcoin protocol itself is evolving.

History of Bitcoin Core

Bitcoin Core is more of a focal point for the development of the Bitcoin protocol than a command and control point. If for any reason it ceases to exist, a new point of focus will arise; the technical communication platform on which it is delivered (currently a GitHub repository) is merely a matter of convenience, not the integrity of the project or its definition. In fact, we have already seen in the past how the Bitcoin development focus has changed platforms and even names!

• In early 2009, the source code for the Bitcoin project was a simple .rar file hosted on SourceForge. Early developers actually exchanged patches with Satoshi via email;
• On October 30, 2009, Sirius (Martti Malmi) created a repository for the Bitcoin project on SourceForge;
• In 2011, the Bitcoin project moved from SourceForge to GitHub;
• In 2014, the Bitcoin project was renamed Bitcoin Core.

History and technology of Bitcoin SV

In the fall of 2022, the Bitcoin Cash community split into two camps, each of which presented its own vision for the development of cryptocurrency. The developers were unable to reach a consensus, and as a result, investors had to choose.

Bitcoin Cash ABC, led by Roger Ver, has chosen to introduce decentralized applications (dapps) and cross-blockchain transactions (a feature that will eliminate the need for exchanges). ABC is currently a BCH token, which will later change BCHABC.

Bitcoin SV, led by Craig Wright, solves the problem of scaling (which affects the speed of transaction acceptance). In the future it is planned to expand the block to 128 MB. The BCH network split at block #556767.

Therefore, Bitcoin SV largely repeats the BCH technology; in particular, the developers settled on the Proof-of-work consensus algorithm and are not going to change it yet. At block 557301 there was a reorganization of blocks, which is sometimes typical for PoW cryptocurrencies.

Do not trust anyone

While there are several GitHub "maintainer" accounts at the organizational level with the authority to contribute code to the main branch, this is more of a supporting function than a position of authority. If anyone could push code into the "master" branch, it would quickly become a "too many housewives in the kitchen" scenario. Bitcoin Core follows the principles of least privilege, so that any powers granted to individuals can be easily taken away if they are abused.

Core is transparent about the list that matters: the PGP keys who can sign merge commits.

The lesson to be learned here is to not trust GitHub! Even Bitcoin Core doesn't know the full list of people who can change the repo, as that extends to probably dozens of GitHub employees.

— Peter Todd (@peterktodd) October 4, 2018

From a security perspective, GitHub is a trustless system. Any number of project employees on GitHub can use their administrative privileges to contribute code to the repository without the consent of the maintainers. But it is also unlikely that an attacker on GitHub would be able to compromise the PGP key of a Bitcoin Core maintainer.

Instead of relying on code integrity based on GitHub account policies, Bitcoin Core uses a continuous integration system that verifies trusted PGP keys that must sign each code addition (commit). Although these keys are associated with known individuals, it is still unsafe to assume that this will always be the case - the key could be compromised without us knowing unless the true owner of the key notifies other maintainers. Thus, keys for adding code also do not guarantee perfect protection; they simply make it more difficult for an attacker to enter arbitrary code.

Where to store BSV coin

The Bitcoin SV project team recommends several wallets for storage, although some of them are in beta. Which bitcoin SV wallet to choose:

• Centbee (beta) ー priority in a simple interface and fast transactions;

• CashPay ー only BCH and its forks;
• Coinomi supports not only Bitcoin SV, but also 500 other cryptocurrencies;
• Guarda ー supports top cryptocurrencies, it is mainly chosen by ETH holders;
• Pixel Wallet ー is currently unavailable.

Keys to the Kingdom

At the time of writing, the trusted PGP fingerprints are:

71A3B16735405025D447E8F274810B012346C9A6 133EAC179436F14A5CF1B794860FEB804E669320 32EE5C4C3FA15CCADB46ABE529D4BCB6416F53EC B8B3F1C0E58 C15DB6A81D30C3648A882F4316B9B CA03882CB1FC067B5D3ACFE4D300116E1C875A3D

These keys are registered to:

Wladimir J. van der Laan < [email protected] > Pieter Wuille < [email protected] > Jonas Schnelli < [email protected] > Marco Falke < [email protected] > Samuel Dobson < [email protected] >

Does this mean we trust these five people? Not really. Keys are not proof of identity - these keys could potentially fall into the hands of other people. What guarantees does running the verify-commits script in Python really give you?

python3 contrib/verify-commits/verify-commits.py Using verify-commits data from bitcoin/contrib/verify-commits All Tree-SHA512s matched up to 309bf16257b2395ce502017be627186b749ee749 There is a valid path from “HEAD” to 82bcf405f6db1d55b 684a1f63a4aabad376cdad7 where all commits are signed!

The verify-commits script performs an integrity check. Any developer can run it on their computer. When executed, the script checks the PGP signature for every code addition commit since commit 82bcf405... in December 2015 - over 3400 additions at the time of writing. If the script completes successfully, it says that every line of code that has been changed since then has gone through the Bitcoin Core development process and has been "signed" by someone with a maintainer key. While this is not a cast-iron guarantee that no one has entered malicious code (the maintainer could become malicious or have their keys stolen), it does significantly reduce the likelihood of an attack. What are maintainers and how did they get this role? We'll dive into this a little later.

Multi-level security

The integrity of Bitcoin Core code should not depend on just a few cryptographic keys, so there are many other checks to ensure deep security. There are many levels of security:

Security of pull requests

1. Anyone can freely propose code changes to improve the software by opening a pull request to the main branch on bitcoin/bitcoin.
2. Developers check pull requests to ensure they are not malicious. Anyone can freely review pool requests and provide feedback—there are no gatekeepers or entrance exams to participate in Bitcoin Core. If a pull request reaches the point where there is no reasonable objection to its addition, the maintainer commits it (merges it).
3. The core maintainers installed this script to ensure that they could not push unsigned commits into the repository.
4. Code addition commits are optionally timestamped via OpenTimestamps.
5. The Travis Continuous Integration system runs this script regularly to check the integrity of the git tree (history) and to ensure that all commits on the master branch have been signed by one of the trusted PGP keys.
6. Anyone can run this script to verify PGP signatures on all commits since December 2015. I ran it while writing this article and it took 25 minutes to run on my laptop.

Release Security

1. Gitian's deterministic build systems are run independently by multiple developers to create identical binaries. If someone manages to create a build that doesn't match other developers' builds, that's a sign that the build is non-deterministic, so the final release won't happen. If non-determinism is detected, developers track down what went wrong, fix it, then build another release candidate. Once the deterministic build is successful, the developers sign the resulting binaries, ensuring that the binaries and the toolchain have not been tampered with and that the same source was used. This method removes the potential for the build and distribution process to become a single point of failure. Any user with the necessary technical skills can run their own build system; instructions here.
2. Once Gitian builds are completed successfully and the binaries are signed by the builders, one of the Bitcoin Core maintainers signs a PGP message with the SHA256 hashes of each build. If you decide to run a pre-built binary, you can check its hash after downloading and then check the authenticity of the signed release message using the hashes. Instructions for this can be found here.
3. All of the above is open source and can be tested by anyone with the skills and desire to do so.
4. Finally, even after passing all of the above quality and integrity checks, the code that is contributed to Bitcoin Core and ultimately made into a release is not run on a network of nodes by any centralized entity. Rather, each node operator must make a conscious decision to update the code it runs. Bitcoin Core intentionally does not include an auto-update feature, as auto-update could potentially force users to run code that they did not choose themselves.

Despite all the technical security measures that the Bitcoin Core project implements, none of them are perfect, and any of them, in theory, can be compromised. The last line of defense for the integrity of the Bitcoin Core code is the same as for any other open source project - constant vigilance. The more eyes that look at the Bitcoin Core code, the less likely it is that malicious or incorrect code will make it into release.

Code coverage

Bitcoin Core has a lot of code to test. There is a set of integration tests that runs on every PR (pull request), and an extended set of tests that runs on the master every night.

You can check your code coverage with tests yourself:

1. Clone the Bitcoin Core repository on GitHub;
2. Install the necessary dependencies to build from source;
3. Run these commands;
4. View the report at ./total_coverage/index.html.

Also, you can see the code coverage report provided here by Marco Falcke.

Code Test Coverage Report This high level of test coverage means high confidence that the code functions as intended.

Testing is important when it comes to consensus-critical software. For particularly complex changes, developers sometimes perform painstaking mutation testing: that is, they test the tests themselves by deliberately breaking the code and checking that the tests fail as expected. Greg Maxwell gave some insight into this process when discussing the 0.15 release:

“A test is a test of software, but what does the test test? Software. To test the test, you have to hack the software" - Greg Maxwell

How to quickly take a screenshot

Letters on Thursdays

How not to spam and meet KPIs. Which marketing tools are better and which are worse. How to send beautiful and clear letters.

A screenshot is a screenshot. It can be useful to show or explain something to other people, as well as to prepare illustrations for an article.

There are many ways to take a screenshot quickly:

• press hot keys in the operating system;
• use the built-in program in the system;
• install the extension in the browser;
• download the program to your computer or laptop.

Let's look at each method in more detail. Especially for those who stopped by for a minute, I’ll tell you right away which tool is best to use in which cases.

On macOS

To take a screenshot:

• entire screen, press Shift+Command+3;
• selected area - Shift+Command+4;
• browser window - Shift+Command+4, then press spacebar and click on the window.

Mac saves all pictures on the desktop in PNG format.

On Windows

To take a screenshot:

• entire screen, press PrtSc;
• active window - Alt + PrtSc.

The screenshot is saved to the clipboard. This is convenient when you need to insert an image directly into a document (for example, Google Docs) or into an editor (Paint, Photoshop). To insert a screenshot, press Ctr+v or select the desired item in the context menu (right mouse button).

If you want to immediately save the photo as a file, press Win/Fn + PrtSc. Look for the file on your system drive in the Images/Screenshots folder.

Where to find.

Via search, or press Shift+Command+5.

What he can do.

Takes a screenshot of the entire screen, a selected area, a browser window, or a screen menu. By default, it saves pictures to the desktop.

There is a timer that delays the shot for 5 or 10 seconds. This feature is useful when you need to remove drop-down menus and system messages.

The utility allows you to edit the image: flip it, add captions and highlight the main thing.

Where to find.

Through search or in the “Start” menu - “Windows Accessories”.

What he can do.

Takes a screenshot of the screen, active window, or selected area. Among the features - it allows you to select both a rectangular area and an area of ​​arbitrary shape.

Heart shaped highlight. A screenshot of the program window was taken using the Alt+PrSc keys

The Snipping Tool has a timer to delay the shot for up to 5 seconds.

The resulting image opens in the editor, where there is a pen and a marker for selections. Changes cannot be undone, which is inconvenient. Therefore, if you need to edit a screen, it is better to open it in Paint (this is done directly from the “Scissors” menu).

The finished image is saved as JPG or PNG.

The Windows 10 team is threatening to replace the Scissors tool with the Sketch on Screen Fragment utility in one of the next updates. To access it, press Win+Shift+S. There is no timer or ability to remove the active window, but there is a cancellation in the editor.

Screen Sketch tool menu

I will move from the simplest to the most functional.

Language.

English.

What he can do.

Takes a screenshot of the entire page in one click. To do this, click on the extension icon or Alt+Shift+P. Takes a high-quality and quick screenshot of the entire page.

To save the finished screen as a file, drag it to your desktop.

Format.

PNG or PDF.

What is the price.

For free.

Install

See how the service eats up the page with gusto. It will cope perfectly with any landing page or longread

Language.

Russian.

What he can do.

Takes a photo of the selected area in two clicks, allows you to share a link or save the file to disk. The link is immediately copied to the clipboard.

I didn’t like that when you select a tool, the visible area of ​​the screen decreases, as if the resolution is changing (I’m working on a laptop running Windows 10).

Format.

PNG.

What is the price.

For free.

Install

The extension changes the screen size after launch, which is why the image on the right and the text of the captions did not fit

Language.

Russian.

What he can do.

Takes a screenshot of the selected area.
Unlike Screenshot, Lightshot has an editor with basic tools. Allows you to add text, highlights, arrows, lines and shapes. Can't blur parts of a screenshot. On the plus side, the extension allows you to quickly share a photo on social networks (VKontakte, , , Pinterest) or print the screen.
Another cool feature is searching for similar images in Google directly through the service editor.

Format.

PNG.

What is the price

. For free.

Install

Conveniently, all editing tools appear immediately after selecting an area. You can change the size and position of the frame, even if you have already added text and drawn arrows

Language.

English.

What he can do.

Takes a screenshot of the selected area, the visible part of the screen, the browser window and the entire page. There are hotkeys to capture the entire page.

FireShot offers to save, send by mail, or print the finished image. The paid version also includes exporting pictures to OneNote and Flickr.

The big minus is that the free version does not have an editor.

Format.

PDF, JPG, PNG, GIF or BMP.

What is the price.

Free without editor. There is a lifetime license - about 3,000 rubles.

Install

At first glance, the paid version of the service has a lot of tools. However, there is no blur or sequence of steps. In addition, I found it awkward to use and the design seemed outdated

Language.

Russian.

What he can do.

Photographs a fragment or the entire page. Supports hotkeys. Allows you to save the picture to your computer or publish it to the cloud and immediately receive a link. It’s convenient that you can quickly share a screenshot on social networks.

The editor has many tools. Draw with a pencil; add straight lines, arrows, shapes and comments; hide the excess using blur. The Joxi editor even has a sequence of steps.

To have access to your screenshot history, you need to register.

Format.

PNG.

What is the price.

For free.

Install

Joxi can share an image on 40 social networks

Language.

English.

What he can do.

Captures a selected area, a visible part of the screen, or the entire page. Allows you to select a delay of 3 or 5 seconds before the photo is taken. Supports hotkeys.

The service's editor has all the standard editing tools, including blur and the ability to change the size of the picture.

The finished image can be saved as a file on your computer or in the cloud (Google Drive is available for free), printed, or shared with your team via Asana, Slack, and Trello (registration required).

A big plus of Awesome Screenshot is that the extension allows you to record not only screenshots, but also screencasts.

Format.

PNG or JPEG (selectable in settings), PDF.

What is the price.

For free. There are paid tariffs starting from 300 rubles/month. Mainly they are pumping up the capabilities for screencasts.

Install

Of the paid tools, the sequence of steps is the most useful, but it’s easy to do without it

Joxi and Lightshot have desktop versions with roughly the same functionality as the extensions. There is no point in describing them again. But the Screenshoter program has much more functions. Therefore, I will start the review with her.

Language.

Russian.

What he can do.

Captures the entire screen, a selected area, or the active window. Supports hotkeys.

Unlike the extension, the program has an editor with basic tools and blur.

In the settings you can select the image format and quality. The program allows you to save the finished screenshot to disk or upload it to the server.

The most important feature of the desktop version of Screenshot is that the program can shoot video in mp4 format for up to 60 minutes.

Format.

PNG and JPG.

What is the price.

For free.

Download

The editor in the program is painfully reminiscent of the Lightshot editor

Language.

Russian.

What he can do.

Captures the screen, area and active window. You can configure hotkeys.

The tools include blur and sequence of steps.

The finished screen is saved to the cloud, to disk or to the clipboard. It is possible to share the image with other users and send it by mail.

The program has a nice interface. One thing is bad: when I try to take a screenshot, the size of the visible screen changes, so taking screenshots is inconvenient.

Format.

PNG.

What is the price.

For free.

Download

Language.

Russian.

What he can do.

Takes a screenshot of the selected area. Supports control using hot keys.

There is an editor with all the basic tools.

The finished image is saved to the clipboard, hard drive or uploaded to the cloud. It is possible to set the quality of saved images.

Not a bad program, but here I still have a problem with the size of the visible part of the screen - it changes after selecting a tool. The desktop versions of Screenshot, Joxi and Lightshot do not have this problem.

Format.

JPG.

What is the price.

For free.

Download

1. Don't be shallow

. Important elements for which the screenshot is taken should be visible and understandable without a magnifying glass or close examination.

2. Cut off the excess.

Shortcuts, extraneous windows and browser tabs distract from the essence. Try to remove such things from the frame, or at least crop and blur the most distracting elements.

3. Focus on what's important.

Use arrows and highlights.

4. Do it carefully.

Screenshots should not contain cropped pieces of content, and it is better to make all arrows and highlights in the same style.

5. Remove confidential information.

Be sure to hide all personal information if you plan to post the image online. The Blur tool is good for this.

6. Think about the goal.

First, think about why you are taking a screenshot, what you want to show with it. When the goal is clear, it's easier to get the screenshot right.

Source: https://www.unisender.com/ru/blog/sovety/screenshot/

Free market competition

BitMEX wrote an excellent article about the Bitcoin implementation ecosystem. There are more than a dozen different implementations compatible with the Bitcoin network, and even more implementations of “competing” networks. This is the freedom of open source - anyone who is dissatisfied with the efforts of the Bitcoin Core project can start their own project. They can do it from scratch, or they can fork the Core software.

At the time of writing, 96% of available Bitcoin nodes are running some version of Bitcoin Core. Why is this so? How can Bitcoin Core have a near-monopoly status in the network of nodes if it can be implemented by someone else in software with minimal effort? After all, many other implementations provide RPC APIs that are compatible with, or at least very similar to, Bitcoin Core.

I believe this is a result of Bitcoin Core being the focal point of development. This project has orders of magnitude more time and supporting talent invested in it, meaning that the code produced by the Bitcoin Core project tends to be the most efficient, reliable, and secure. When it comes to money management, node operators don't want to run second-rate software.

Also, given that this is consensus software, and the Bitcoin protocol does not - and probably cannot have - a formal specification because no one has the right to write one, it is to some extent safer to use the implementation with the greatest development focus to be more likely to be compatible with most of the rest of the network. In this sense, the development focus code is closest to the existing specification.

How and where to buy Bitcoin SV

As soon as the hard fork was announced, Bitcoin ABC and Bitcoin SV were supported by large cryptocurrency platforms. BCHSV tokens can be purchased on crypto exchanges Binance, Upbit, Gate.io, Poloniex.

Bitcoin SV mining

You can mine Bitcoin SV on Asic S9 and other models that support SHA256. Craig Wright organized a pool ー SVpool, which has no commission, daily payments, servers are located mainly in China and Europe.

Who are Core Developers?

Those who are not familiar with the Bitcoin Core development process, when looking at the project from the outside, may mistake Core for a monolithic organization. But such an opinion is far from reality! There are often disagreements among the core contributors, and even the most diligent contributors have written a lot of code that is never added to the project. If you read the rules for participating in the project, you may notice that they are quite vague - the process is best described as "rough consensus."

Maintainers will consider whether the patch adheres to the general principles of the project; meets minimum standards for inclusion; and evaluate the consensus of the project participants as a whole.

Who are Bitcoin Core maintainers? They are participants who have accumulated sufficient social capital within a project by making quality contributions (that is, committing useful code) over a period of time. When an existing group of maintainers thinks it would be wise to give the role to a member who has demonstrated competence, reliability, and motivation in a particular area, they can grant commit access to that person's GitHub account. The Lead Maintainer role is for someone who oversees all aspects of a project and is responsible for coordinating releases. Over the years the role has been voluntarily transferred as follows:

• atoshi Nakamoto: 1/3/09–2/23/11
• Gavin Andresen: 2/23/11–4/7/14
• Wladimir van der Laan: 4/7/14 – present

Working as a Bitcoin Core maintainer is often compared to working as a janitor because maintainers do not actually have the authority to make decisions that go against the general consensus of project members or users. However, the role can be quite complex due to the close attention it receives from the ecosystem as a whole.

For example, Gregory Maxwell left his position as maintainer in 2017 for personal reasons; likely due to the public pressure he experienced during the scaling debate. Vladimir wrote a thoughtful post about the stress of Core support and why it made sense to remove Gavin's commit access at the time, which upset a lot of people:

Likewise, when Jeff Garzik was kicked out of the GitHub organization, he and others were upset about it; but he has not participated in Core for two years. Giving his GitHub account permission to make commits to the repository would not benefit the project - it would only create a security risk and violate the principle of least privilege that Vladimir referred to in his post.

Others may look at Core and think that it is a realm of technocracy where new members are difficult to join. But if you talk to the participants, you will find that this is not the case. Although only thirteen people had commit access over the years, hundreds of developers contributed. I made a few small commits myself; although I don't consider myself a "Core Developer" - technically I am. No one can stop you from making your contribution!

In 2011, as a high school student who didn't understand what a pointer was, the @bitcoincoreorg developer community (especially people like Greg Maxwell, @pwuille, etc) worked with me to make my shitty patches worth merging and made it a great environment to learn in.

— Matt Corallo (@TheBlueMatt) November 18, 2018

In 2016, @TheBlueMatt organized a residency at @ChaincodeLabs. I'd been reading everything about Bitcoin I could lay my hands on but hadn't dared submit a PR. Matt, Alex and Suhas were extraordinarily generous with their time in teaching us about Bitcoin and how to contribute.

— John Newbery (@jfnewbery) November 18, 2018

I started making small commits to @bitcoincoreorg and was in awe of the engagement on my PRs by @MarcoFalke @pwuille @orionwl @LukeDashjr and @jfnewbery Such a welcoming project!

— Jeff Rade [Jan/3➞₿?] (@jeffrade) November 19, 2018

It seems to be very difficult for people to understand that the focal point of Bitcoin development is not simply a structure defined by the role of Bitcoin Core accounts on GitHub. Although Bitcoin Core has some structure (using centralized communication channels for coordination), the project itself is not subject to the control of any of its participants - even those with elevated privileges on the GitHub repository. While it is technically possible for maintainers to take over the project's GitHub repository, censor dissenting developers, and perhaps even retain the "Bitcoin Core" brand name, the result would be that Bitcoin Core would simply no longer be the focus of development. If developers no longer agree with the actions of the maintainers, they will simply fork the code and move to work in another repository, in which previous Bitcoin Core maintainers will not have administrative privileges.

Even without a “coup” as such, if the controversial changes somehow found their way into Core, there would be developers who would fork the software, remove the controversial changes and make a new version available to users. As an example, this is exactly what happened when Amaury Sechet forked Bitcoin Core and removed the Segregated Witness functionality to create Bitcoin ABC. Alternatively, if Core rejects proposed changes that some people require, developers can fork the repository and add those changes. This has happened many times, for example when:

• Mike Hearn forked Core to create Bitcoin XT;
• Andrew Stone forked Core to create Bitcoin Unlimited;
• Jeff Garzik forked Core to create BTC1.

Forking the code is very simple. Shifting the focus of Bitcoin development is difficult—it requires convincing participants that their time would be better spent on another project.

I hold allegiance to no man, to no dev team in Bitcoin. My intention is to run the code that I judge best protects my financial sovereignty.

— Jameson Lopp (@lopp) March 18, 2017

It is also difficult to convince many that users do not blindly accept changes to Bitcoin Core - this can be a self-proving belief, because if users do not participate in the consensus process, aware of the options available, then they give up some of their power to the developers. However, user power was exploited during the 2017 UASF (User Activated Soft Fork) movement. An anonymous developer using the pseudonym shaolinfry proposed BIP 148, which would force miners to enable the Segregated Witness feature at block height around August 1, 2022. However, BIP 148 proved too controversial to be accepted into Bitcoin Core, so shaolinfry forked Core and published Bitcoin UASF software. This implementation attracted a non-trivial number of users and seemed to create enough pressure to convince miners to accept BIP 91 to activate the fork before BIP148 expired.

In my opinion, the best contributors to Bitcoin Core are those who practice extreme ownership. Case in point - although John Newbery was not the author of the code that contained this particular consensus bug, he feels responsible for not preventing this code from being added through careful analysis and for not catching the bug later when writing tests:

I am responsible for the CVE-2018-17144 bug. https://t.co/BrPVivM296

— John Newbery (@jfnewbery) September 24, 2018

We are all Satoshi.

Participation in Bitcoin Core

Getting started with Core can seem intimidating, although there are many resources to help aspiring developers. Instructions for participation can be found here, although you may want to start with a simplified introduction to Jimmy Song:

Core developer Eric Lombrozo also wrote an article about how changes occur in the Core repository:

Alex B. wrote an excellent article about the Bitcoin development philosophy - the article below can save a lot of time for anyone who is serious about getting involved in the development process:

A specific example might be helpful here - while writing this article, I encountered difficulty trying to run the verify-commits.py script on my computer to verify the integrity of my GitHub commit history. To save future developers from having to deal with these problems, I opened a pull request to improve the documentation. As you can see from the PR history, four different developers made suggestions on how to improve my request. These ranged from using a different wiki markup, to a simplified bash command, to a new parameter that can be used in the verify-commits.py script.

I agreed that all the suggestions made sense, so I included them in my code and updated the pull request. At this point, the developers who participated in the code review agreed that they considered the pull request acceptable, and maintainer Marco Falcke flagged it for inclusion in the 0.18 release. After several more days passed without any objections from the developers, the code was added to Core by maintainer Samuel Dobson.

Team BSV

On the Bitcoin SV website it is written that the project team consists of 5 C++ developers (who have a total experience of 95 years), Quality Assurance engineers, and nChain project managers.

The lead developer, Daniel Connolly, came to the nChain team from United Nations Enterprise Systems, where he held leading positions in the IT field. Daniel has been investing in Bitcoin, Electron Cash and BitcoinJ-Cash for several years.

Technical Director - Steve Shadders, responsible for shaping the vision of the project, communicating with sponsors and partners. Steve has been a Bitcoin investor since 2011, created one of the first open mining pools, and invested in BitcoinJ.

Bitcoin SV is heavily backed by entrepreneur Craig Wright (who makes headlines for his harsh comments about competitors) and multi-billionaire Calvin Ayre.