In April, Bitcoin Association Switzerland published its first annual report, charting the activities of the organization and the progress made by the Bitcoin SV network during the Association’s first year of operations. In these series of extracts, we take an in-depth look at elements of the report, this time exploring the different initiatives undertaken by the Association for upskilling developers and igniting innovation across the BSV ecosystem.
The foundational principle of Bitcoin Association is to advance business with Bitcoin SV – a goal to bring together enterprises, exchanges, transaction processors and developers to drive the future of digital commerce. Central to success in that mission is building a critical mass of development talent that can create the applications to support the Bitcoin SV ecosystem, as well as to realize the incredible enterprise potential of the BSV blockchain.
Bitcoin Association foresees a new job category made possible by Bitcoin SV – a Bitcoin script engineer – and is creating material to train this new type of specialist developer. Bitcoin Association is in the process of developing a formal Bitcoin SV training curriculum, set to be released later in 2020. The program will eventually lead to a developer certification for those that complete the curriculum.
In Year 1, Bitcoin Association undertook a number of initiatives to support the BSV development community, from those targeted at bringing in novice developers or those from other development ecosystems, through to high-level materials for those already on the vanguard.
In its first year of operations, Bitcoin Association hosted two Hackathons – competitions for developers focused on building new applications on the BSV blockchain. Entrants were competing for a share of 500 BSV, as well as the chance to be considered for investment from the Ayre Group – prominent Bitcoin investor Calvin Ayre’s personal investment arm.
More than 200 developers participated in each of the Hackathons, with teams allotted 48 hours to create their solution within the parameters of the competition’s theme. For the first hackathon, developers were asked to solve the problem of on-boarding new users and developers to BSV; and for the second were tasked with creating an inventive way for users to use Bitcoin SV to earn value.
The finalists from each Hackathon were flown to one of CoinGeek’s flagship conferences to present their entries – CoinGeek Toronto for the first Hackathon and CoinGeek Seoul for the second. There, the finalists were judged by a panel of experts and an audience vote.
In 2020, Bitcoin Association will launch its third virtual Hackathon. Visit the Bitcoin Association Hackathon site for updates.
Bitcoin Association supported a pair of developer bootcamp initiatives in Year 1, working with the teams behind CambrianSV Bootcamp and DotCamp for BSV to help offer an intensive training program in an immersive environment.
Cambrian SV hosted a pair of bootcamps, the first in Bali, Indonesia and the second in Lisbon, Portugal. 30 developers were selected to attend each of the CambrianSV bootcamps, with competition for places high – but that competition ended at the door, where the unique ethos of the CambrianSV program shone through and saw developers from competing projects working together in the pursuit of collective goals.
DotCamp for BSV, a joint initiative between Bitcoin Association and DotWallet, was a weekend-long bootcamp held in Fuzhou, China – aimed at further developing technical expertise amongst the thriving domestic BSV community.
One of the Association’s biggest achievements in its first year was to launch the Bitcoin SV Wiki, produced in partnership with nChain. Announced at CoinGeek London 2020, the Wiki is a joint-effort to provide a comprehensive digital resource to educate the public about Bitcoin, with information suitable for people taking their first steps into digital assets, right through to experienced developers – who will find the depth and quality an invaluable resource when building applications. Covering everything from Bitcoin underlying protocol and network design, through to its scripting language and technical capabilities, the Bitcoin SV Wiki will be an ongoing project for the Association in 2020, but since launch, has already proved to be a popular resource.
The Bitcoin SV Wiki is live now at wiki.bitcoinsv.io
As part of its first Annual Report, Bitcoin Association made a strong commitment to continue growing the expanse of resources available to developers, in addition to initiatives target at upskilling them. To that end, the Association committed to:
- Provide comprehensive resources targeted at developers, from new entrants to the Bitcoin SV ecosystem, through to experienced contributors.
- Build-out the educational resources and development curriculum already underway, to ensure that those within the ecosystem are sufficiently equipped to capitalize on the unique features of the Bitcoin SV blockchain.
Already in 2020, Bitcoin Association has taken great strides with its developer initiatives, headlined by the establishment of BSV Academy. In partnership with nChain, BSV Academy is hosting an array of developer-focused webinars to teach Bitcoin SV application development skills and network theory. Covering a wide range of topics, the webinars are taught by industry leaders and are free to attend.
To find out more about the developer initiatives undertaken by Bitcoin Association in Year 1, as well as its goals and commitments in this space for the upcoming year, read the full Annual Report below.
