Chronicle successfully restores original Bitcoin protocol

By now, it’s well-known (or should be) that BSV restored Satoshi Nakamoto’s original rules for Bitcoin in January 2020. The “Genesis” release of the protocol software removed most limits on transaction block sizes, along with poorly-implemented new rules added by various contributors. It also restored functionality that had been removed, but was required for Bitcoin to achieve global scale. In 2026, the SV Node development team will activate ”Chronicle”—an upgrade intended as the final major release of BSV blockchain’s SV Node software before Teranode eventually supersedes it.

BSV Association stated Chronicle will be “as close to the original (Bitcoin) protocol as possible,” restoring any remaining OPCODE functions that weren’t included with Genesis, and removing any leftover limitations on what data can be added to a transaction. They also collaborated with developers on specific projects running on the network, determining features that would enable maximum flexibility and creativity. 

The Chronicle upgrade will be mandatory for all full nodes (i.e., “miners”) using SV Node to process transactions, though its individual features will be “opt-in” for those who wish to make use of them. It’s scheduled to activate on the BSV Testnet at block height 1,713,168 (estimated at 12:00 p.m. on January 14, 2026), but won’t activate on the Mainnet until a few months later, around 12:00 p.m. on April 7, 2026 (block height 943,816).

Anyone can examine the Chronicle upgrade to the SV Node at GitHub. As well as its near-full restoration of Bitcoin’s original rules, it includes a return to the original Transaction Digest Algorithm (for Bitcoin Script users) and removes some restrictions on Transaction Malleability.

Why did Bitcoin need restoring?

Satoshi Nakamoto had always intended for Bitcoin to scale. The 1MB transaction block-size limit was intended as a temporary spam filter, not the almost-religious commitment to small blocks we still see on the BTC network today. Since Satoshi first stepped back from the Bitcoin project in late 2010, other developers who managed the project in later years removed parts they felt were unnecessary and added additional conditions.

Many of these changes were poorly documented and did not record their rationale for implementation, said Connor Murray, BSV Association’s Director of Stewardship. Some were made based on vague or unproven arguments about Bitcoin features, such as transaction malleability. Part of his job at BSVA is to ensure that restored Bitcoin maintains its adherence to Satoshi Nakamoto’s original vision and its guiding set of economic incentives.

Whether these changes were well-intentioned but misguided or part of a deeper conspiracy to limit BTC’s use mainly to speculative market trading remains a contentious debate. Either way, by late 2018, the result was a messy, “Bitcoin-esque” system that couldn’t be used properly as digital cash and couldn’t scale to compete with the world’s other digital payment platforms. Years-long arguments over how (or if) Bitcoin should scale led to two “hard forks” that split the common record into three separate networks: BSV, BTC, and BCH.

“In most cases, these changes were based on the misconception that Bitcoin is a system that uses technology to control its economics rather than an economic system that incentivises technological progress,” wrote BSV developer Brendan Lee in 2019.

Bitcoin, since 2018 as Bitcoin SV or simply BSV, has been functioning well as a massively scalable blockchain network since Genesis was activated in 2020. As well as BSV can process and verify any amount of additional data on-chain. This can include enterprise-tier distributed apps, government records, smart contracts, tokenized assets and stablecoins, games, social media, and rich multimedia files.

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Chronicling Chronicle

Murray announced the release of Chronicle with an X post, thanking his fellow developers, including Darren Kellenschwiler, Brendan Lee, TonesNotes, Freddie Honahan, and the team at STAS Token.

“Getting this right was especially important to me as someone who has been involved with BSV since its inception in 2018,” he wrote. “I have spent countless hours evangelizing the importance of restoring the original protocol and removing the restrictions that have been imposed on application developers – enabling unrestricted creativity in the use of Bitcoin Script and the underlying Bitcoin protocol.”

“I also have spent countless hours detailing the importance of a fixed and locked protocol, like Satoshi always intended. As a result, this promised release required care to ensure that Bitcoin’s original protocol could be further restored, while promoting stability to existing businesses and applications.”;

The Chronicle’s final alterations were made after a close examination of all changes made to the base protocol in Bitcoin’s history, and an attempt was made to determine the reasons behind them. Bitcoin was always meant to scale. Chronicle completes that vision while the BSV network awaits its true calling as the foundation of a high-speed, beneficial, world digital economy.

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