What percentage is good enough for Bitcoin improvements proposals?

[Felicity_Tide]

From what we all have learnt, Bitcoin which is a decentralized network (Open source), is not own by a centralize (one man) entity, but rather all those who are participants in the network. The participants are what we are all familiar with such as the miners, developers, and even we the users(buyers and sellers). As we all carry out our activities, it has made the Bitcoin network safe. I imagine this like a producing company without a real owner, but every workers performing their own task to keep the company alive. Not sure if such truly exist 

As a curious person that I am  , I understand that there are complex nature of disagreement that exist between groups of people leaving under one roof. If disagreement is a natural thing among people, how then does the Bitcoin community make changes to the Bitcoin network?, Knowing fully well that the majority must agree towards an ideal before any development can be done.

While doing my research, I discovered that their is an order of steps that needs to be taken before any new development can be implemented on the Bitcoin network.
Bitcoin improvements proposals also known as BIP is the approach used to promote any form of changes, upgrade and development, just to achieve the aim of improving the Bitcoin protocol.

There have been series of additions to the Bitcoin network which were not part of Satoshi's design in the first place. Some of the proposals I found on GitHub are bip-0001, bip-0002, bip-0008,etc. I have provided the link below to all the approved and proposed bips so far.

After taking my time to review as much as I could, I discovered that BIP 1 and 2 proposed the standard a BIP should meet and how it should be prepared. Though, I find it difficult to identify which BIP has been approved and which one haven't.

The images below includes guidelines on BIP and the Proposed BIP currently available.





We know that bitcoin's network adjusts its difficulty every 2,016 blocks which is approximately every 2weeks from calculation. Any approved BIP can be implemented when mining has been concluded and a fresh mining difficulty has been triggered. But this entire process requires the approval from about 95% of the miners, that agrees to it when mining a block.



MY Questions -
1.Could anyone help me identify between the BIP that have been approved by the community and those that are just proposed.

2. I also see 80-20%, 70-30% as a good percentage of those who agree to those who do not. Can't the new upgrades be implemented even with such percentages?.

3.Since BIP requires about 95% support from miners before it's implementation, does the decision of the 95% override those who are against?.

4. Aside capitalizing on new mining difficulty (approximately 2,016 blocks) before implementing a BIP, are there other perfect times these implementations can be done ?.

Please pardon any errors on this post

Link to all BIP https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/tree/master

[Upgrade00]

1.Could anyone help me identify between the BIP that have been approved by the community and those that are just proposed.
2. I also see 80-20%, 70-30% as a good percentage of those who agree to those who do not. Can't the new upgrades be implemented even with such percentages?.
3.Since BIP requires about 95% support from miners before it's implementation, does the decision of the 95% override those who are against?.

1. To attain the status of a bip it means that it has been approved and implemented to an extent already. Proposals do not get called Bips with a number attached to them. Different wallets use different bips to run their system.

2. Yes it can though User activated soft forks, if it already has over 51% community support.

3. That's the overwhelming majority already. Note that there are also different kind of Bips like consensus, RPCs and peer services and not all require consensus rule.

[vjudeu]

If disagreement is a natural thing among people, how then does the Bitcoin community make changes to the Bitcoin network?

It is simple: you have the current version, which is up and running. If there is enough support to make an upgrade, then people can do so. But most of the time, the "status quo" is preserved, and nothing is changed.

Also note, that there are many things, which can be done, without touching consensus. For example: if you want to compress transaction data, you can do so without any forks. And there are many kinds of BIPs, including a lot of those, which are "Informational", which means, that they are fully optional, and you can implement them, or skip them, if you want.

Though, I find it difficult to identify which BIP has been approved and which one haven't.

You have a large table in the README file: https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/README.mediawiki (it is visible in the front page, but you probably didn't scroll enough to see it). You have a column called "Status".

But this entire process requires the approval from about 95% of the miners, that agrees to it when mining a block.

It depends. Historically, different BIPs had different activation rules.

1.Could anyone help me identify between the BIP that have been approved by the community and those that are just proposed.

See the "Status" column, mentioned above.

Can't the new upgrades be implemented even with such percentages?.

There are many different kinds of changes:

1. Hard-forks: highly discouraged, the nearest one can happen in 2038 or 2106, people try to avoid it at all costs, because then you can easily create an altcoin, instead of improving Bitcoin.
2. Soft-forks: this is something like Segwit or Taproot, but we had some smaller soft-forks, which are less known, but also important (for example BIP-42).
3. No-forks: those changes are done on a regular basis. For example: HD wallets, compressing transactions, signing messages, UI changes.

Also note, that there are some second layers, where you can experiment with features, without deploying it on mainnet, for example millisatoshis in LN have no on-chain representation.

does the decision of the 95% override those who are against?.

It depends on activation rules, but yes, if something is activated, then to deactivate it, you need another soft-fork (because "just turning it off" could lead to a loss of funds).

are there other perfect times these implementations can be done ?.

Well, sometimes things are scheduled, and sometimes not. For example, fixing Value Overflow Incident was never planned in advance: it just happened, and required an immediate reaction. The same with fixing total supply: there was just some simple commit, and the whole BIP was created later, to explain, what happened, and why it happened.

[achow101]

1. To attain the status of a bip it means that it has been approved and implemented to an extent already.

No. There is no approval or implementation requirement for something to be a BIP.

Just because something has a BIP number and is in the BIPs repo does not mean that it is a good idea. Just because something is a BIP doesn't mean it is "approved" or otherwise active, deployed, or at all used in Bitcoin.

[Felicity_Tide]

Can't the new upgrades be implemented even with such percentages?.

There are many different kinds of changes:

1. Hard-forks: highly discouraged, the nearest one can happen in 2038 or 2106, people try to avoid it at all costs, because then you can easily create an altcoin, instead of improving Bitcoin.
2. Soft-forks: this is something like Segwit or Taproot, but we had some smaller soft-forks, which are less known, but also important (for example BIP-42).
3. No-forks: those changes are done on a regular basis. For example: HD wallets, compressing transactions, signing messages, UI changes.

Also note, that there are some second layers, where you can experiment with features, without deploying it on mainnet, for example millisatoshis in LN have no on-chain representation.

So much to learn from the three replies I got from you (@vjudeu), @Upgrade00, and @achow101. But I think I need to make further research from what @achow101 and @Upgrade00 are trying to point out. Both replies looks contradicting.

You have a large table in the README file: https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/README.mediawiki (it is visible in the front page, but you probably didn't scroll enough to see it). You have a column called "Status".

I guess I didn't  . So many rejected, and I guess those with the "FINAL" status are in the last phase of the community review?.

[achow101]

I guess I didn't  . So many rejected, and I guess those with the "FINAL" status are in the last phase of the community review?.

No, there are no phases of community review, or approval steps, or anything like that. "Final" means that the proposal is being used enough that the BIP itself should not be changed as that would cause confusion. However, just because something is "Final" does not mean that it is recommended or a good idea. It means that no changes will be made to the document itself.

Note that the "Final" and other statuses are probably going to away since they're fairly vague and subjective. There will likely be a successor to BIP 2 proposed in the coming months that greatly simplifies and clarifies several parts of how BIPs works.

[NotATether]

Also there is the case where BIPs are put into use, at a much more limited scale, while they are still drafts. This is usually how so many BIPs never get to the final stage since there are a few structural problems with them but they are still used by those programs, and fixing said problems would cause a backward-incompatible change. So it never advances.