BIP (Bitcoin Improvement Proposal)

BIP stands for ‘Bitcoin Improvement Proposal’. A BIP describes an idea for Bitcoin precisely: a technical change, a standard for wallets or a process among developers. Each BIP has a number and is publicly available on GitHub.

A proposal, not a decision

The process has existed since 2011.^[1] Today it is governed by BIP 3: a BIP is explicitly a personal recommendation by its authors. The repository’s editors check whether it is complete and clearly written – not whether it is likely to be adopted. There is no body that decides on BIPs.^[2] Which rules apply is determined by the people who run nodesGlossaryNodeA computer that runs Bitcoin software and exchanges transactions and blocks with other nodes. Together, the nodes form the Bitcoin network; full nodes check every rule themselves.On the learning path: Stage 1 · Step 3 – How does Bitcoin work? →In the glossary →×, through the software they choose.

Well-known examples

• BIP 39: the standard for the seed phraseGlossarySeed phrase (recovery phrase)A sequence of usually 12 or 24 words from which your wallet derives all its private keys. Anyone who knows the words has full access to your bitcoin – so they belong in an offline backup and never in anyone else’s hands.On the learning path: Stage 5 · Step 3 – Backing up your seed phrase →In the glossary →×.
• BIP 141: SegWitGlossarySegWit (Segregated Witness)A 2017 soft fork that treats signature data (the ‘witness’) separately. It fixed transaction malleability, increased block capacity and makes payments with modern addresses (bc1q…) cheaper.In the glossary →×, activated in 2017.
• BIP 341: TaprootGlossaryTaprootA soft fork from November 2021 that introduced Schnorr signatures and more flexible spending conditions. Complex arrangements such as multisig can look like a simple payment. Taproot addresses start with bc1p.In the glossary →×, activated in 2021.
• BIP 110: temporarily stricter rules for data in transactions. Only 2.53% of blocks signalled support; 55% would have been needed. In August 2026, its supporters split off onto a chain of their own, which attracted hardly any miners.^[3]

What this means for you

A BIP number isn’t a seal of quality. ‘Supports BIP 39’ only means the wallet follows this standard, and your seed phrase should in principle also work in other wallets that use it.