"A whole lot of things that should always have been possible on Bitcoin but weren’t will now be able to be explored by people. I think it will see explosive growth, not just in terms of the amount of activity that’s going on, but in the breadth of the type of activity that will be seen.” - Steve Shadders, Bitcoin SV developer and Technical Director of nChain (the development company that brought us the Bitcoin SV project.

If crypto tweets like the ones above have increasingly been popping up on your crypto radar, I am guessing you are either burning with excitement or rather befuddled at the cryptic reference to #GenesisUpdate.

If you find yourself in the latter category or simply wish to refresh your memory (wink-wink, nudge-nudge), fear not; today’s blog will catch you up on the 101 of Bitcoin SV’s Genesis upgrade and its significance.

The 101 of Bitcoin SV’s Genesis Upgrade

What is it?

“If you think about the Genesis upgrade, it's about unleashing what Bitcoin should be and how it can start growing.”

Daniel Connolly, Bitcoin SV’s lead developer.

Genesis is both a protocol upgrade and a hard fork scheduled for activation on 4 February. It will be Bitcoin SV’s last software update ever, excluding a second release to fix issues that were identified with the first release.

Genesis restores Bitcoin SV to Bitcoin’s original functionality while setting the stage to expand the network’s potential applications far beyond that of a speculative asset or payment network. With the Genesis upgrade in place, the network will provide a foundation for building an entirely new economy.”

What Changes does Genesis Introduce?

With Genesis, the transaction data size limit will be removed entirely, allowing miners to set their own limits depending on their capacity and market incentives. As result of the network’s higher data throughput capacity, the mathematical capabilities of Bitcoin’s Script language will scale instantly.

As mining equipment evolves, miners will be able to increase their limits even further, so creating an environment of continuous scaling to encourage businesses to develop new and more advanced applications.

Why Do we Need Genesis?

For much of the first 11 years of Bitcoin’s existence, its capabilities have been artificially restricted. We need the capability of the original Bitcoin design to unleash its potential and restore Bitcoin to a state where it really has no limits.

How Genesis will Impact Bitcoin SV

Unlimited applications

Bitcoin SV’s mission is to create an infrastructure (the base layer, the protocol, the plumbing) that would enable a whole new world of uses. When Bitcoin SV removed the op_return data size limit at the beginning of 2018, an explosion of creativity followed. The business opportunities that have been discovered since then are just a hint of what to expect once the block size limit is removed entirely. Think Twetch, WeatherSV, the Metanet…

The truth is that we simply can’t imagine the potential use cases that businesses, individuals and collectives will discover, once their creativity is no longer hemmed in by artificially imposed limitations!

A Stable Protocol to Encourage Enterprise Adoption

Until now, Bitcoin has seen limited enterprise adoption due to frequent changes to protocol - sometimes at the whim of a developing team. By locking down the protocol, Bitcoin SV offers the stability that enterprises demand as a foundation for their business applications.