BLIP – Bitcoin Lightning Improvement Proposal

bLIP stands for Bitcoin Lightning Improvement Proposal.

A bLIP is a design document providing information to the community of Lightning Network developers, or describing a new feature for the Lightning Network.

The bLIP should provide a concise technical specification of the feature and a rationale for the feature.

The existence and format of bLIPs is influenced heavily by BIPs, which stand for Bitcoin Improvement Proposals. BIPs are proposals that are used to describe and provide information to the community about changes to Bitcoin’s base layer, which in turn were influenced by PEPs, which stand for Python Enhancement Proposals.

It is recommended that developers use bLIPs to propose new features they would like to be added to the Lightning Network. bLIP-0001 describes the bLIP process, format and requirements for these documents.

The bLIP author, sometimes referred to as the bLIPs ‘champion’, is responsible for building consensus within the community, documenting dissenting opinions and taking ownership of editing and maintaining the bLIP document. It is recommended that they first propose their idea to the Lightning development mailing list, and check thoroughly for overlap of ideas that exist in other bLIPs.

Importantly, if a feature is intended to become universal or near universal, it must be a BOLT. A feature proposed in a bLIP can be said to be a part of the Lightning Network when it becomes a part of a BOLT document.