Hello, I was curious to explore what insights can be gained about Bitcoin's dev history from Github data. While there's a lot to uncover, in the fist iteration, i have looked at.
1: How many have contributed to Bitcoin core? Who are the contributors?
2: Can their contribution be quantified? Not all commits are equal, but nevertheless it is a decent starting point.
3: Can GitHub data, such as commits, contributors, stars, and more, provide additional context and insights into Bitcoin's history? (WIP)
Here is high level summary:
1: Less than ~400 dev contributors so far
2: the first five to do the commit on the github repo:
| Login | Name | First Contribution | Contributions |
| non-github-bitcoin | Non-Github User Bitcoin Commits | 2009-08-30 03:46:39+00:00 | 271 |
| gavinandresen | Gavin Andresen | 2010-07-14 15:54:31+00:00 | 1120 |
| dooglus | Chris Moore | 2011-01-21 10:37:34+00:00 | 31 |
| luke-jr | Luke Dashjr | 2011-01-28 19:39:31+00:00 | 526 |
| mgiuca | Matt Giuca | 2011-02-25 21:45:38+00:00 | 6 |
3: Top 5 contributors by # of contributions
| Login | Name | First Contribution | Contributions |
| laanwj | None | 2011-05-07 20:13:39+00:00 | 7370 |
| Anonymous | merge-script, MacroFake, MarcoFalke, Marco | NaT | 6272 |
| fanquake | fanquake | 2012-02-28 12:31:56+00:00 | 3904 |
| sipa | Pieter Wuille | 2011-03-17 21:51:59+00:00 | 2195 |
| achow101 | Ava Chow | 2016-01-23 13:58:17+00:00 | 1604 |
Here is a chart that has data on all the contributors. Pls have a look at the interactive version at. https://sorukumar.github.io/plebdashboard/v0%3A%20for%20feedback/Aug042024_Bitcoin_Contributors.html
The tooltip contains info about each developer and their contributions.
Here's how to read the chart:
1: The x-axis represents the year each developer made their first contribution to Bitcoin Core. For example, Peter Wuille's first contribution was in 2011, so he's part of the "Class of 2011". The y-axis shows the number of contributions as of last week.
2: The size of the bubble is correlated with # of contribution. So, larger bubbles indicate top contributors. The tooltip also displays the percentage of their contributions compared to the total number of commits to Bitcoin Core
3: The color of each bubble represents the year of the developer's last contribution. This helps identify who is currently active.
4: All anonymous contributors are grouped under the "Class of 2009". Upon examining the data, I found that many of these individuals are non-anonymous developers making commits anonymously. I even spotted a few high-profile names from big tech companies.
5: The dark blue is Satoshi. https://github.com/non-github-bitcoin?tab=overview&from=2017-12-01&to=2017-12-31
6: you may notice that the GitHub data appears to show a lower number of contributors. According to the GitHub API, the numbers are as follows:
| Repository | Commits | Contributors | Forks | Stars |
| bitcoin/bitcoin | 42041 | 1200 | 35988 | 77846 |
However, out of 1200 only ~350 are identifiable. Looking at the data, I am sure majority of these anonymous folks are 350 dev making commit anonymously. Only 1k commits are out of these anonymous folks, except the dark blue bubble representing Satoshi. Remember v0.1.5 onward is available on the github. https://satoshi.nakamotoinstitute.org/code/
I ended up doing hours of work to manage data quality issues ( account type: user/anonymous), so let me know if i missed anything obvious.
Also, let me know if you would like to get anything added into the analysis/data.
Which countries do you think will be most stable & well equipped during this tumultuous period?
Bearing in mind strength of currency, resources, debts, trade deficits - are there any jurisdictions you are actively considering diversifying to (outside the U.S)? Ones where perhaps you think stagflationary trends will be felt the least?
I built a semantic search engine for The Kevin Rooke Show: https://maikuro-search.vercel.app
Tech stacks:
How often are you commenting Matt? If not very often, how do expect SN to look the way you want it?
I'm gonna cop out of giving a specific answer for 2 reasons: 1) everything I have any familiarity with is at an incredibly speculative stage. if they work at all, they will outperform bitcoin by orders of magnitude, but I have no idea if that's gonna happen! but also 2) it sets up an interesting point that is very heavily related to my new company and that I will speak and write about a lot in the coming months: the way you outperform bitcoin is by running a business on a bitcoin standard and generating a naturally bitcoin-denominated yield.
my professional mission for the next decade at least is to make this as easy as possible and hence make it increasingly natural for people to think in terms of bitcoin rather than dollars. bitcoin's bitcoin-denominated return is zero, so any business on a bitcoin standard with a positive return on capital will "outperform bitcoin" on a technicality. so the point I'm making is that this is a better aspiration than happening to pick something that does well and comparing both to dollars. so long as dollars are still in the mix, there is more work to be done.
I teach middle school students English for a living and will thus answer this question from the lens of English educators.
I find myself increasingly relying on ChatGPT as a tool to complement my teaching and learning. Just yesterday, I was unceremoniously tasked to come up with a reading comprehension exercise for the graduating students in my school. The tried-and-tested method would be to look for suitable articles in periodicals like Readers’ Digest, but I decided that writing my own passage would save me much time and hassle. So I wrote one personal recount on the way home.
This morning, I logged on ChatGPT, asking it to make “suggested edits to my writing” and give inputs like readability level and word count. ChatGPT edited my writing within minutes. I had no qualms using it to set comprehension questions given that I was the creator. I see ChatGPT as polishing a raw diamond.
In fact, I think ChatGPT will lead to an increased focus in writing skills because we all know that if we give it rubbish inputs, we will yield garbage outputs. I am keen to hone my skills in prompt engineering and have already prepared materials to teach my students about how they can get ChatGPT to “TL;DR” and “ELI5” (literally the prompts that I use) articles from legitimate sources. I’m having more fun at work!
Currently at a Cashu Hackday. There was a presentation by @calle at btc++ yesterday and it blew my mind how simple it is - at least from this high level perspective. So far, I didn't take the time to look into it even though I heard about the project several times already. With the presentation, I got the idea in less than a minute.
I also liked the introduction where existing custodial services like SN were mentioned (thanks for the shout-out even though it was as an example for a custodial service, haha) and that Cashu only solves the privacy issue with custodial services. Kinda like do one thing but do it well.
So if we use custodial services, we can at least keep our privacy :)
Now looking into how much work integrating Cashu with SN would be. It's not top priority, but when we make it easier for stackers to use their wallet to buy stuff (as @DarthCoin has been asking for a while), I think privacy and thus Cashu gets more important. We don't want to see what you're buying :)
Maybe we could even use it for internal transactions so even we can't tell who zapped who? But that would mess with our ranking system and personal feeds too much, I guess.
One of my favorite things about SN is that we can each discover where we fit into the ecosystem: i.e. where we are adding value to the community.
Some people make great original posts, like this one, and others drive engagement by responding and keeping the conversations going. Other people are great at surfacing valuable resources and sharing those, while others help out with development of the site itself.
So far we manage all of that with very little toxic internet culture seeping in.
It's no surprise that many of us find ourselves spending more and more time here.
what are the most important lessons you’ve learned about how to approach bitcoin education?
"As of the end of Q2, we have converted approximately 75% of our Bitcoin purchases into fiat currency."
Tesla didn't HODL. Or deploy as liquidity on Lightning to earn yield.
Some just have to learn the hard way 🤷♂️
Yes, I've also found this to be a problem. Hopefully with the spike in fees more merchants will get some lightning solutions set up.
I'd like to see a better non custodial way of running a lightning node. Maybe a node in the box with channels already set up that they could buy as a package.
I recently bought a PoS & a book. I like instant settlement for small purchases.
The trend everywhere is towards mobile connectivity. In countries like Sudan, only 20% of the country has mobile internet access. That will shift to 70%+ by the end of the decade. This will have a massive impact as hundreds of millions come online.
Bitcoin will play a big role in this. It will give anyone with mobile internet the power to be their own bank. The question is what does that look like? Will they simply use Binance? Or will they use Bitcoin in a self-custodial way?
This right here is exactly the thing that social media could be but hasn't figured out how to be, at scale: finding connection, sharing stuff that matters, finding a tribe or founding a tribe, having encounters with people around the world that can mean something.
Hopefully you're proud of the role you're playing in building that. It's important.
Some programming language where I can actually make contributions to the source code of open source projects to make it better
Suppose I have a pizza, and cut it into 2 slices, one for me and one for you. You decide to cut your pizza into 100 million pieces. It doesn't make more pizza, it just makes the pieces smaller.
I recommend only starting a bitcoin business if truly passionate in what your building. Also if you have this “absolute need to build it.” Perfect example I literally had this aha moment at a meetup tonight. Then decided to come back to the lab, to flesh it out further took me 4hrs. A normal person wouldn’t do that. You have to really believe and love what your building. I personally believe for me I get great joy in seeing all the people around me become “successful” in whichever way that means for them. What I’m trying to say is live your best life and don’t waste not building the thing you want to see in the world. If thats what you want to do. I personally want to see a bitcoin standard in my lifetime and I know the fastest way to do that is help as many builders and people as I can to achieve that goal. That’s why I do what I do. KISS method always works.
-I work on multiple pieces simultaneously, and keep returning to them when I'm in the mood for that piece or if that deadline is approaching. This way, each piece I do is "in the oven" for quite a while which allows me to keep coming back to it and shaping it until it's published.
-The total balance is very hard. I've had to reduce podcast appearances and turn down a lot of speaking engagements, just to make sure I have time for my core analysis and life.
Probably not dangerous (relatively speaking), but for self-exploration, nothing beats silence and solitude, and this is safer, cheaper, and easier (though not always simple!)
I've done Ayahuasca three times before kids, but won't probably do it again. I have the vague suspicion that "self exploration" is used deceptively, i think it is just another code word for more spark, big bang experience to fill that void most of us feel inside. That was partially the case for me, anyway.
My 2 sats.