A Statement From Members of The Bitcoin Community

In the course of debate on bitcoin scalability that has consumed much time in the previous

few years, we feel that the Bitcoin community as a whole has become increasingly divided

and internally hostile.

Rather than focus on our differences, an important first step towards mending the present

situation and moving forward together is to find a set of common principles that all members

of the Bitcoin community can agree upon, regardless of which bitcoin software they prefer to

run or preference of scalability mechanisms.

The following list of shared principles are things that we believe everyone in our community

should be able to agree on:

1. No “Official” Bitcoin: We believe that no particular implementation of the Bitcoin

protocol holds claim to being the “official” version of Bitcoin.

2. Multiple Implementations: We believe that having multiple implementations of the

bitcoin protocol and multiple teams working on these various implementations is a

net gain for the bitcoin community.

3. Greater Number of Developers: We believe that having more developers

contributing expertise and growing their knowledge of the Bitcoin protocol is better

than having few developers.

4. Diversity of Innovation: We believe that the presence of more developers and more

development teams will lead to greater diversity of innovation and solutions to the

problems we will inevitably face as a growing industry.

5. Free & Open Source: Bitcoin being free and open source software, we believe that

the development efforts made by one group are not “all or nothing.” We hope that

different groups of developers can cooperate, communicate, and share ideas and

code with one another. In this way, we believe that the bitcoin community as a whole

will converge on the solutions that are both the most desirable and the most elegant

technically.

6. Bitcoin is Leaderless: We believe that Bitcoin is a leaderless community comprised

of its many parts, and that no team of developers has decision making authority for

the entire community. We prefer instead that developers put forward solutions, and

those solutions that are best will be adopted by way of emergent consensus.

7. Greater Decentralization: We believe that greater decentralization in all areas of

bitcoin is a positive thing. Decentralization makes bitcoin more robust, more resilient,

and removes the inherent structural weaknesses that occur when there exist single

points of failure.

8. Harder to Attack: We believe that as Bitcoin becomes more widely adopted, it may

come to be viewed by powerful entities as a threat to their own status quo. We as a

community must always remain vigilant towards attacks against Bitcoin, and we must

prudently minimize attack vectors wherever we can.

9. Mutual Cooperation: We believe that a house divided cannot stand. In facing the

challenges of external threats and of attaining mainstream adoption, we must not

forget that we are most effective when working together towards a common goal.

10. Free & Open Communication: We believe that debate, disagreement, and

discourse are all healthy and natural things for a community, but in order to realize

the benefits of such the conversation must be free and open. Through the process of

free and open discourse, we as a community will find consensus. We wholeheartedly

reject censorship, and while we believe that private communities have the right to run

themselves however they see fit, we hope that members of our community will

choose those platforms that encourage free and open discussion over those that do

not.

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In line with the above statements we find to be mutually agreeable, today we are pleased to

announce the creation of a one million dollar grant fund for Bitcoin protocol development

through various development teams. This grant is intended to help bootstrap the process of

building more capable and effective teams of developers; a process in which gathering initial

momentum is the greatest barrier to entry.

We emphasize that the signing of this statement is meant as a conciliatory gesture only, and

that the presence of our various signatures on this document does not imply a preference for

any one implementation of Bitcoin over any other; nor does it imply the intention to run any

particular client.

We assert that each of us is free to run the software of our choosing, and that choosing to

run a particular software implementation should not be grounds for controversy or infighting.

We trust in the decision making abilities of our friends and colleagues, and believe that

community consensus is something that will naturally emerge when we are presented with

choices and the ability to freely and openly discuss the merits and flaws of every choice

available to us.

We hope that by finding common ground in the above statements and by showing good faith

towards all developers who wish to contribute to the development of Bitcoin, we may begin a

process of mending the deep rift that has divided and distracted our still-nascent community

and industry.

If you are working on a Bitcoin protocol-layer related project and would like to request more

information or apply for a grant, please send an email to

apply@bitcoindevelopmentgrant.com .