What Libbitcoin and SX are And Why They Matter

Amir Taaki's libbitcoin has come to be one of the most advanced alternative implementations of the Bitcoin protocol in existence. Although there are now dozens of alternative implementations on the market, libbitcoin is one of the few that re-implements the complete Bitcoin standard, allowing users to run a deterministic wallet, an elliptic curve message signing interface and, of course, a fully functional Bitcoin node. Even multisignature transactions, which many popular wallets including blockchain.info and Bitcoin Wallet for Android still do not support, libbitcoin handles just fine.....

Launched in 2011 by an ensemble of dedicated open-source developers led by Bitcoin’s rebellious hacker Amir Taaki, Libbitcoin was born a tool of resistance. Offering an alternative to the original Bitcoin client, its goal was to diversify the Bitcoin development ecosystem, ensuring no single development team retained effective control over the network. “Centralized software is vulnerable to the dictates of whoever controls development of that software code, and any dictates pressured onto them,” Taaki’s Libbitcoin manifesto reads. Five years later, Taaki has vanished from the Bitcoin....

Full RBF, while contentious, is essentially a matter of time, either through incentivized miners or through individual nodes.

Despite repeated statements from Bitcoiners that price does not matter, the price of bitcoin is fundamentally a measure of its success.

Bitcoin's protocol is open source. So is its narrative. The story and the code evolve. We all contribute. Each pulls in a direction. Themes emerge: engage or disengage with regulators, build for anonymity or transparency, embrace or shun agorist beginnings. There is no one way, just individual frames-of-reference. Bitcoin is greater than the sum of these arguments. Ultimately it will be moulded in our collective image. A good entrepreneur sits, smiles, nods and focuses on reduced transaction fees. A libertarian has loftier ideals. Many wear two hats. After all, many businesses today were....