Bitcoin Stamps Protocol Whitepaper Released
After years of building, iterating, and refining the protocol that has made permanent digital assets on Bitcoin a reality, we are proud to announce the official release of the Bitcoin Stamps Protocol Technical Whitepaper.
This document represents the culmination of work begun in block 779,652, when mikeinspace inscribed the very first Bitcoin Stamp—a moment that started a movement none of us could fully predict.
What the Whitepaper Covers
The whitepaper is a complete technical specification for the Bitcoin Stamps metaprotocol, covering every layer of the protocol stack:
Protocol Architecture — How Bitcoin Stamps leverages the UTXO set for permanent, consensus-critical data storage. Unlike witness-data approaches that full nodes can prune, stamp data lives in spendable transaction outputs. Every full node must store it. That permanence guarantee is fundamental.
Token Standards — The full specification for SRC-20 fungible tokens (DEPLOY, MINT, TRANSFER operations), SRC-721 non-fungible assets, SRC-101 decentralized naming, and SRC-721r composable recursion. The account-based balance model that underpins SRC-20 is documented in detail, making clear why it differs from UTXO-bound token schemes.
Economic Model — Fee structures and the real cost savings delivered by the OLGA P2WSH optimization (30-95% reduction vs bare multisig), activated at block 865,000.
Security Analysis — Threat model, attack vectors, and the permanence guarantees that make Bitcoin Stamps durable across Bitcoin's lifetime.
Stamps Improvement Proposals — The SIP governance framework and the current active proposals (SIP-0001 through SIP-0008) that shape the protocol's future.
A Protocol Built by Community
The whitepaper is not the work of a single author. It documents a protocol that emerged from genuine collaboration:
mikeinspace brought the original vision—the idea that digital assets could be stored permanently in Bitcoin's UTXO set, immune to pruning, guaranteed by consensus.Arwyn gave that vision its first cultural expression, creating Bitcoin Stamp #4258 at block 783,718, and later channeling that creative energy into the first SRC-20 token—KEVIN—at block 788,041.
Reinamora architected the technical protocols that turned the vision into working infrastructure: the indexer, the encoding schemes, the consensus rules, and ultimately the OLGA optimization that made the protocol economically accessible to everyone.
KEVIN itself remains the living proof that the protocol works as intended—the first fair-launch SRC-20 token, with over 2,300 holders who joined not through hype but through recognition of what the protocol represents.Read the Whitepaper
The whitepaper is available in multiple formats:
- Download PDF — For archival and offline reading
- View HTML — Browser-readable with full formatting
- Markdown Source — For developers and contributors
Individual sections are also available on GitHub for those who want to read the architecture, token standards, or security analysis in isolation.
Protocol Timeline
The whitepaper documents the complete protocol evolution:
| Block | Milestone |
|---|---|
| 779,652 | First Bitcoin Stamp |
| 788,041 | First SRC-20 token (KEVIN) |
| 793,068 | First native Bitcoin encoding |
| 796,000 | Counterparty cutoff — SRC-20 consensus rule |
| 865,000 | OLGA activation — P2WSH optimization |
What Comes Next
A whitepaper is documentation, not a destination. The protocol continues to evolve through the SIP process. Active proposals are addressing fee optimization, new token capabilities, and expanded use cases for permanent on-chain data.
If you are building on Bitcoin Stamps, the whitepaper is your canonical reference. If you are new to the protocol, it is the best single document for understanding why this approach to permanent digital assets on Bitcoin is different—and why that difference matters.
The whitepaper is available now at bitcoinstamps.xyz/en/whitepaper/.
Join the community on Telegram and explore the ecosystem at stampchain.io.
In Lak'ech Ala K'in — we are all KEVIN.