Capability Improvement Proposal (CIP)

Similar to the practice of BIPs and EIPs, the Burst community has established CIPs (short for “Capability Improvement Proposal” or even “Coin Improvement Proposal”) to advance further development of Burstcoin. So CIPs describe standards for the Burstcoin platform, including core protocol specifications, client APIs, and contract standards.

Definition of Burst CIP

A (Burst)Coin or Capability Improvement Proposal (CIP) is a document providing information to the Burst community, or describing a new feature for Burst, its processes or environment. The CIP should provide a concise technical specification of the feature and a rationale for the feature. CIPs are intended to be the primary mechanisms for proposing new features, for collecting community input on an issue, and for documenting the design decisions that have gone into Burst. The CIP author is responsible for building consensus within the community and documenting dissenting opinions. Because the CIPs are maintained as text files in a versioned repository, their revision history is the historical record of the feature proposal.

CIP workflow

The CIP process begins with a new idea for Burst. Each potential CIP must have an author — someone who writes the CIP using the style and format described below, shepherds the discussions in the appropriate forums, and attempts to build community consensus around the idea. The CIP author should first attempt to ascertain whether the idea is CIP-able.

Small enhancements or patches to a particular piece of software often don’t require standardization between multiple projects; these don’t need a CIP and should be injected into the relevant project-specific development workflow with a patch submission to the applicable issue tracker.

Additionally, many ideas have been brought forward for changing Burstcoin that have been rejected for various reasons. The first step should be to search past discussions to see if an idea has been considered before, and if so, what issues arose in its progression. After investigating past work, the best way to proceed is by posting about the new idea to the Burstcoin Discord or Burst Reddit. Once the author has asked the Burst-community as to whether an idea has any chance of acceptance, a draft CIP should be presented to the Burst Reddit. This gives the author a chance to flesh out the draft CIP to make it properly formatted, of high quality, and to address additional concerns about the proposal.

Following a discussion, the proposal should be submitted to the CIPs repository. Once the CIP has been approved for draft inclusion by an editor (who must ensure that the above steps have been taken), the CIP will be merged with draft status, and the editor will open a new pull request to activate the CIP. This pull request will serve as the comments / discussion thread for the CIP and must remain open for a minimum of 30 days.

Reasons for rejecting CIPs include duplication of effort, disregard for formatting rules, being too unfocused or too broad, being technically unsound, not providing proper motivation or addressing backwards compatibility, or not in keeping with the Burstcoin philosophy.

It is highly recommended that a single CIP contain a single key proposal or new idea. The more focused the CIP, the more successful it tends to be. If in doubt, split your CIP into several well-focused ones.

For a CIP to be accepted it must meet certain minimum criteria. It must be a clear and complete description of the proposed enhancement. The enhancement must represent a net improvement. The proposed implementation, if applicable, must be solid and must not complicate the protocol unduly.

CIP Types

  • A Standards Track CIP describes any change that affects most or all Burst implementations, such as a change to the network protocol, a change in block or transaction validity rules, or any change or addition that affects the interoperability of applications using Burst. Standards Track CIPs consist of two parts, a design document and a reference implementation

  • An Informational CIP describes a Burst design issue, or provides general guidelines or information to the Burst-community, but does not propose a new feature. Informational CIPs do not necessarily represent a Burst-community consensus or recommendation, so users and implementors are free to ignore Informational CIPs or follow their advice

  • A Process CIP describes a process surrounding Burst, or proposes a change to (or an event in) a process. Process CIPs are like Standards Track CIPs but apply to areas other than the Burst protocol itself. They may propose an implementation, but not to Burst’s codebase; they often require community consensus; unlike Informational CIPs, they are more than recommendations, and users are typically not free to ignore them. Examples include procedures, guidelines, changes to the decision-making process, and changes to the tools or environment used in Burst development. Any meta-CIP is also considered a Process CIP.

Overview of Burst-CIPs

No. Layer Title Owner Type Status
__1 Applicaton Dynamic BRS Node Capabilities @rico666 Informational Active
__2 Enhancement (Hard Fork) Quadruple Block Size @rico666 Standard Active
__3 Enhancement (Hard Fork) Variable Slot-based Fees @rico666 Standard Active
__4 Enhancement (Hard Fork) Multi-Out Transactions @rico666 Standard Active
__5 Enhancement (Hard Fork) POC 2 @rico666 Standard Active
__6 Enhancement Unconfirmed Tx Queue Optimizations @Brabantian Standard Active
__7 Enhancement Differential Unconfirmed Tx Propagation @Brabantian Standard Active
__8 Informal Define Tx and Balance “Dust” @rico666 Standard Draft
__9 Enhancement (Hard Fork) To-All Transactions @rico666 Standard Draft
_10 Enhancement (Hard Fork) Anchor Real-World Data in Blockchain @rico666 Standard Draft
_11 Enhancement (Hard Fork) Tethered Assets @rico666 Standard Draft
_12 Enhancement BFS – Burst File System @JohnnyDeluxe Standard Draft
_13 Enhancement Suggested Transaction Fees @Brabantian Standard Active
_14 Enhancement Burst Actions through Deeplink QR-codes @Brabantian Standard Active
_15 Enhancement (Hard Fork) RWFDS-enabled FEE_QUANT Introspection and Adjustment @frank_the_tank Standard Draft
_16 Enhancement PoC2.X16 – A New Optimized Plot File Format @JohnnyFFM Standard Draft
_17 Enhancement Differential UT Propagation in push & pul @Brabantian Standard Active
_18 Applications Cross-Platform Wallet UIl @blankey1337, @ohager Standard Active
_19 Enhancement Multi-Out: View Incoming Transactions @harry1453 Standard Active
_20 Enhancement (Hard Fork) Updated AT fees @frank_the_tank, @jjos, @burstjack Standard Active
_21 Enhancement (Hard Fork) Adjustment for Asset-Issuance fee @frank_the_tank, @burstjack Process Draft
_22 Informal Burst Deep Link Specification @ohager Standard Active
_23 Enhancement Enforce Slot fees @Curbsdhifter Process Active
_24 Enhancement New deadline algorithm based on a logarithm transformation @jjos Process Active
_25 Enhancement Minor Network Changes @harry1453 Process Active