Bitcoin Association has published its 2020 annual report, detailing the progress made by the organisation in Year 2 and its goals for the future. This follows the publication of Bitcoin Association’s inaugural annual report last year and continues the organisation’s trend of providing members and the public with transparent and in-depth summaries of the regular strides it is making in growing the Bitcoin SV ecosystem.
This series of extracts explores the many initiatives Bitcoin Association has undertaken to further the development of applications and technologies on Bitcoin SV and grow the network.
Bitcoin Association was founded with the goal of advancing businesses with Bitcoin SV, facilitating the growth of the network to enable more advanced use cases to emerge, as well as making the world of Bitcoin-based applications and businesses more accessible to developers and the public.
One of the most important components of this strategy is providing developers with the tools and knowledge to create applications on the Bitcoin SV blockchain. Bitcoin Association has undertaken several initiatives which support existing Bitcoin developers and encourage newcomers to the Bitcoin SV ecosystem to begin building applications on the network.
Bitcoin Association is committed to educating and upskilling the development community for those working on, or interested in working on, the Bitcoin SV blockchain. This commitment brings fresh talent to the Bitcoin SV ecosystem, growing the overall community and strengthening the transaction demand for its blockchain. It also supports the continued growth in demand for Bitcoin developers due to the increased adoption of the Bitcoin SV network by enterprises and start-ups alike.
As part of its ongoing commitment to the upskilling and education of developers, Bitcoin Association hosted several events during Year 2 which were explicitly aimed at encouraging and rewarding development on Bitcoin SV. The organisation has also continued to roll out new and exciting resources for Bitcoin developers, which have proven useful to newcomers and those experienced in the industry.
In 2020, Bitcoin Association hosted the inaugural Bitcoin SV DevCon – a two-day developer conference for educating those working with the Bitcoin SV blockchain – hosted in partnership with nChain and WeAreDevelopers. The following month, Bitcoin Association ran a Chinese-language version in partnership with the Chinese Software Developer Network (CSDN), China’s largest online community for software developers.
Over the two weekends, Bitcoin SV DevCon welcomed more than 10,000 unique participants from more than 80 countries, 60% of whom were new to blockchain development. Speakers at the event included leaders from across the Bitcoin SV ecosystem, including Jimmy Nguyen, Steve Shadders, Xiaohui Liu, Owen Vaughn, Brenton Gunning, Rafa Jimenez Seibane and Ryan X. Charles.
The third edition of the Bitcoin SV Hackathon was also hosted in 2020 as a lead-up to CoinGeek LIVE. The Hackathon attracted more than 400 participants in an eight-week virtual competition, with developers competing for their share of a $100,000 BSV prize pool.
As a result of the Hackathon’s longer coding period, entries were more ambitious yet far more complete and polished than seen in previous Hackathons. The theme of the event was ‘Connecting the world to one global blockchain’, and the winners were as follows:
- 1st: RepZip
- 2nd: STOTASK
- 3rd: Kyrt
In addition to regularly hosting these major events, Bitcoin Association also made a significant investment in the construction of the Bitcoin SV Wiki, which was announced in February 2020 at CoinGeek London.
The Wiki provides an accessible portal offering a wealth of information about Bitcoin SV and the utility of the Bitcoin protocol as envisioned by Satoshi Nakamoto in the original white paper. It includes information about the basic mechanics of Bitcoin as well as a directory of popular and useful tools for getting started with blockchain-based programming.
Representing one of Bitcoin Association’s efforts to combat the misinformation surrounding Bitcoin that is online and in media, the Wiki serves as a comprehensive resource developed to educate developers and the general public alike.
Bitcoin development bootcamps were also held around the year, with the CambrianSV and DotCamp for BSV events seeing impressive participation.
The second edition of the CambrianSV bootcamp was hosted in Lisbon, Portugal in February 2020 and served as an intensive training environment, with lessons and masterclasses provided to improve the technical knowledge and abilities of the selected class as they develop their applications and projects.
Bitcoin Association was a joint partner on DotCamp for BSV, a January 2020 event hosted in conjunction with DotWallet in Fuzhou, China. The weekend-long bootcamp was held as part of an ongoing commitment to develop the already thriving Bitcoin SV community in China.
The organisation plans to continue with a strong focus on Bitcoin development this year and will host numerous Hackathons, bootcamps, and more DevCon events in 2021. Additional resources are being created to facilitate the onboarding and training of Bitcoin developers to meet the growing demand from enterprises building on Bitcoin SV.
To find out more about Bitcoin Association’s development initiatives as well as the organisation’s plans and commitments for 2021, read the full annual report below.
