In the weeks leading up to Bitcoin’s halving, developers have committed more code to the cryptocurrency than ever before, according to available data.
In April of this year, Bitcoin Core had a total of 510 commits, more than in any other month since BTC was launched. A commit means code is uploaded to GitHub, a popular website for hosting open-source coding projects. Bitcoin Core’s code is hosted there.
Only a few other months in the flagship cryptocurrency’s history have come close to 500 commits. These were April 2018, and October and November 2019. Bitcoin Core, it’s worth noting, it’s the most common software used to run the Bitcoin blockchain. It was originally published by Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto.
Most experienced developers can contribute to the Bitcoin Core cod, and data from GitGitLog shows that over the cryptocurrency’s 10-year history 830 developers have contributed. There are currently, however, 56 active developers.
Bitcoin Core’s development is partly funded by the MIT’s Digital Currency Initiative and by some companies in the sector that fund full-time developers. These include BitMEX, Square crypto, OKCoin, Bitfinex, Chaincode Labs, and others.
It’s unclear why the number of commits hit a new all-time high ahead last month, although on Reddit users have speculated either programmers are “lacking distractions” because of the coronavirus-induced lockdowns, or developers are working on the code ahead of the halving.
One Redditor pointed out most of the commits were fixing tools that make it easier to test, and “tidying up sections of code that are a little messy or inefficient.”
Featured image via Pixabay.
