What Is the Bitcoin Improvement Proposal (BIP) Process?

Nobody at a company decides what changes Bitcoin’s code next. Instead, every serious proposed change goes through a surprisingly formal, public paper trail called a BIP.

BIP stands for Bitcoin Improvement Proposal — a design document that describes a proposed change to Bitcoin, whether it’s a new feature, a process change, or updated information for the community. Anyone can write one; there’s no special permission required, only a willingness to put a genuine technical proposal through public scrutiny.

BIPs follow a structured lifecycle. A proposal typically starts as a draft, gets discussed and refined through public developer mailing lists and community feedback, and is assigned a BIP number once formally accepted for consideration. From there it can move toward Final if implemented and adopted, or get marked Rejected, Withdrawn, or Deferred.

Having a BIP number doesn’t mean a proposal will actually be adopted — it just means the idea has been formally documented and is available for evaluation. SegWit was BIP 141; Taproot involved several BIPs bundled together, including BIP 340, 341, and 342.

What actually makes a BIP take effect on the live network? It comes down to node operators choosing to run software that implements it, and often miners signaling readiness through their mined blocks. There’s no vote in the traditional sense — a change only happens if enough of the ecosystem chooses to run it.

This deliberately slow, consensus-driven process is a feature, not a bug, given what’s at stake: a rushed change to a network securing hundreds of billions of dollars of value would be far riskier than the patience the BIP process demands.

Want to see two real BIPs that actually shipped and changed the network? Continue learning in the Bitcoin Academy.