Bitok - 0.3.19 Mainnet What if Bitcoin had stayed CPU-mineable with complete Satoshi-era codebase? No features added. No ideology injected. No attempt to "fix" Bitcoin according to modern tastes.
Bitcoin v0.3.19 from 2010 was the last release under Satoshi's direct involvement. Everything after that is history. Not destiny.
I've been running an experiment - the original v0.3.19 codebase. The same rules. The same behavior. One major change: a mining algorithm that GPUs and ASICs can't easily dominate. All critical security fixes in place from day one. Adapted only as much as required to run on modern operating systems and **resist GPU mining**.
The main change is replacing SHA-256 with Yespower for proof-of-work. It's memory-hard, so GPUs don't have much advantage. Anyone with a laptop can mine. I think that's how it was supposed to be.
A block explorer for Bitok is now available at bitokd.run Bitok itself does not maintain address or transaction indexes, consistent with early Bitcoin design. The explorer operates using a separate external indexer that parses the blockchain sequentially and builds its own database for inspection purposes.
SpecificationsAlgorithm: Yespower 1.0 (N=2048, r=32) pers="BitokPoW"
Block time: 10 minutes
Block reward: 50 BITOK
Halving: every 210,000 blocks
Max supply: 21,000,000
Difficulty adjust: every 2016 blocks
Coinbase maturity: 100 blocks
P2P port: 18333
RPC port: 8332
Same economics as Bitcoin. 21 million coins, halving every 4 years, etc.
Downloads (latest)Version
0.3.19.4:
https://github.com/elvisjedusor/bitok/releases/tag/0.3.19.4Windows (64-bit):
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bitok-0.3.19.4-win64.zip - GUI + daemon
Linux:
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bitok-gui-0.3.19.4-linux-x86_64.tar.gz - GUI (AppImage portable)
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bitokd-static-0.3.19.4-linux-x86_64.tar.gz - daemon only
Macos (Intel-based) :
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bitok-macos-x86_64.zip - GUI
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bitokd-macos-x86_64.zip - daemon only
Macos (Apple Silicon) :
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bitok-macos-arm64.zip - GUI
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bitokd-macos-arm64.zip - daemon only
Source:
https://github.com/elvisjedusor/bitokd89e9c2a10a2ac5937e7597413414c5982678e8ec704f9d761db0b769c2877a9 bitok-0.3.19.4-win64.zip
6d44626eb20ea0ae46b6ad173232f24b7ed6961bcb306b50276942b40ee1e100 bitokd-macos-arm64.zip
498ef29276849ecc849ac50b02f513837e82754f05d84a5dc1ed61d3100fb291 bitokd-macos-x86_64.zip
900d148cefd86ed07b3925b912545cdf55ff9b99f972b0eff0930c950a493e5a bitokd-static-0.3.19.4-linux-x86_64.tar.gz
985eeaa190f8fa12ddd047cf726c163f03b148ef882f920b359435ee14b6bea0 bitok-gui-0.3.19.4-linux-x86_64.tar.gz
b4945c00e67a4f92a32c61e660e7f34c39424f4b3a4a131bbd2d17f7a23019cb bitok-macos-arm64.zip
6d4a6deff1fb09136ee6afe51e29bb0d857025afbc6e6ccb39115e366408c18f bitok-macos-x86_64.zip
Mining./bitokd -gen # mine on all cores
./bitokd -gen -genproclimit=4 # limit to 4 cores
In the GUI: Settings > Options > Generate Coins
No pools needed. Your CPU is enough to find blocks, at least for now while the network is small. The algorithm automatically uses SSE2/AVX/AVX2 if your CPU supports it.
RunningJust extract and run. It connects to other nodes through IRC bootstrap, same as early Bitcoin did. No configuration file needed - everything is command line flags if you want to change defaults.
Data goes in:
- Windows: %APPDATA%\Bitok\
- Linux: ~/.bitok/
- macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Bitok/
What changed from original BitcoinThree things:
1. Build system updated for modern compilers (OpenSSL 3.x, Boost 1.74+, GCC 11+, wxWidgets 3.2)
2. SHA-256 replaced with Yespower 1.0 for proof-of-work
3. New genesis block so it's a separate network
That's it. The transaction format, script system, networking, wallet - all the same as v0.3.19. All the security fixes from that version are included (value overflow protection, DoS limits, etc).
Genesis blockHash: 0x0290400ea28d3fe79d102ca6b7cd11cee5eba9f17f2046c303d92f65d6ed2617
Message: "The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks"
nBits: 0x1effffff
nNonce: 37137
There was discussion back in 2010 about GPU mining. The concern was that GPUs would eventually take over and regular users wouldn't be able to participate anymore. That's exactly what happened with Bitcoin.
Yespower is memory-hard (~128KB per hash). GPUs have lots of cores but limited memory bandwidth per core, so they can't get much speedup. It keeps things fair for CPU miners.
I'm not saying GPUs will never work. Someone clever enough might figure something out. But it raises the barrier significantly.
What this is notThis isn't trying to replace Bitcoin or compete with it. Bitcoin exists and has gone its own way.
This is just the old code, running as its own thing. If you're curious what Bitcoin was like in 2010, or you want to mine something with your laptop, here it is.
No promises about price or adoption. If it's useful to people, they'll use it. If not, they won't.
SecurityThis is code from 2010. The crypto is fine (ECDSA, SHA-256 for non-mining hashes), but the codebase doesn't have 14 years of additional hardening that modern Bitcoin has.
Back up your wallet.dat. If you lose it, the coins are gone. There's no recovery.
Links- GitHub:
https://github.com/elvisjedusor/bitok- Technical docs:
https://github.com/elvisjedusor/bitok/blob/master/RPC_API.md- Build instructions:
https://github.com/elvisjedusor/bitok/blob/master/BUILD_UNIX.mdLicenseMIT, same as original Bitcoin.
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Writing a description for this thing is bloody hard. There's nothing quite to relate it to.
It's Bitcoin, but not Bitcoin. It's new, but also old.
If you don't get it, that's fine. Run it or don't. The software does what it does regardless.- Tom Elvis Jedusor.
