Bitcoin XT

About

Bitcoin XT is an implementation of a Bitcoin full node that embraces Bitcoin's original vision of simple, reliable, low-cost transactions for everyone in the world. It is based upon the source code of Bitcoin Core, and is built by taking the latest stable Core release, applying a series of patches, and then doing deterministic builds so anyone can check the downloads correspond to the source code.

Mission statement

The XT mission statement defines what the project believes is important: commitment to these principles are what differentiates us from Bitcoin Core. We try to follow Satoshi's original vision, as it is that vision which brought the Bitcoin community together.

Scaling the network up to handle user demand is important, even if that means the network changes along the way. It's what Satoshi wanted and the idea of a global system used by ordinary people is what motivated many of us to join him.
XT provides people with information they need, even if using it requires them to make risk based decisions. For example:
- We believe unconfirmed transactions are important. Many merchants want or need to accept payments within seconds rather than minutes or hours. XT accepts this fact and does what it can to minimise the risk, then help sellers judge what remains. It is committed to the first seen rule. We will not adopt changes that make unconfirmed transactions riskier.
- Lightweight wallets are important. Most users cannot or will not run a fully verifying node. Most of the world population does not even own a computer: they will experience the internet exclusively via smartphones. These users must sacrifice some security in order to participate, so XT supports whatever technical tradeoffs wallet developers wish to explore.
Decision making is quick and clear. Decisions are made according to a leadership hierarchy. The XT software encodes decisions that follow the above principles: people who disagree are welcome to use different software, or patch ours. We do not consider writing principled software to be centralising and do not refuse to select reasonable defaults.
The Bitcoin XT community is friendly, pragmatic, cares about app developers and considers the user experience in everything we do. We value professionalism in technical approach and communication. We run a moderated mailing list and do not tolerate troublemakers.