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CHRONOLOGICAL ARCHIVE • 2017 — 2026
High-Level & Condensed BTCP Timeline
A high-level chronology of Bitcoin Private from launch through remediation and the current relaunch effort. This page is for holders and stakeholders.
2017–2018 — Origins and launch
| When | What happened |
|---|---|
| Nov 2017 | ZClassic is live (BTCP’s Zcash-family predecessor). |
| Feb 2018 | Bitcoin Private whitepaper released; merge of BTC + ZCL narratives. |
| Late Feb / early Mar 2018 | Snapshot of BTC and ZCL holdings; fork-mine / mainnet launch. Transparent addresses use the familiar b1 / bx prefixes. |
| 2018 | Early market and custodial friction (some venues decline markets or use claim processes rather than full listing). |
| Sep 2018 | Significant reorg / 51%-style attack attempt against the network. |
| Dec 2018 | Independent reporting highlights large illegitimate supply from early fork-era issues; remediation code paths for shielded-pool reset and unmoved-burn logic are prepared. |
2019 — Remediation hard forks and a second inflation wave
| When | What happened |
|---|---|
| Jan 2019 | Shielded-pool reset hard fork — removes a large stock of illicit (and some collateral legitimate) shielded value. |
| Feb 2019 | Great Coinburn consensus rules take effect: large unmoved fork/airdrop allocations are made non-spendable under the old chain’s rules (not revived as free supply on a fresh genesis without an explicit decision). |
| 2019 | Several exchanges delist or exit BTCP markets amid custody and trust disputes. |
| Mid–late 2019 | Further network stress (large reorgs); mining parameters updated (including Equihash variant changes). |
| Aug 2019 onward | A new wave of illicit unshielding / inflation is identified by community analysts (“Patient Zero” and later large wash-through events). |
| Nov 2019 | Public write-up “No Sunshine, No Rainbows” documents major illicit balances; freeze-and-appeal style remediation is discussed. Chain also hits a consensus halt around a reward-schedule edge case. |
| Dec 2019 | Community direction toward a new chain (modern Zcash-family codebase) rather than endless patching of the legacy stack. |
2020 — Snapshot cut and a stalled rebuild
| When | What happened |
|---|---|
| Early Feb 2020 | Very large late-window unshielding / drain activity occurs near the end of the historical chain tip. |
| Feb 2020 | Transparent UTXO snapshot height designated for any future airdrop/relaunch cut (commonly referenced as block 680,000). |
| Late 2020 | A contracted rebuild effort is approved; no deliverables produced, no new chain ships. |
2021–2025 — Custody reality and a quiet period
| When | What happened |
|---|---|
| 2021 | Negotiations and correspondence with remaining custodians about what belongs on a new chain; supply semantics after the 2019 burns are documented for the community. |
| 2021–2022 | At least one major venue declines to list a future chain while custodial questions remain live issues between holders and that venue. |
| 2024–2025 | Several historical venues go fully defunct (operations cease / operators removed from the market). By mid-decade only a thin set of live counterparties remain. |
| 2024–2025 | Technical groundwork resumes privately: offline parsing of historical chain data, architecture experiments, and preparation for a modern node stack. |
2025–2026 — Modern rebuild and policy clarity
| When | What happened |
|---|---|
| 2025 H2 | Serious forensics and tooling effort on historical data; false leads from parser mistakes are corrected; true illicit events are separated from artifacts. |
| 2026 Q1 | Snapshot engineering for a genesis-ready transparent set; early Phoenix (Zebra-based) project scaffolding; wallet planning begins. |
| 2026 mid | Zebra-based node work continues (parameter freezes, transparent-first genesis posture). |
| 18 Aug 2026 | Public balance-query site scaffolded (this project): address checks plus interim principles / timeline / roadmap pages. |
| Aug 2026 | Exchange disposition policies adopted: operational venues → leave balances in place; defunct venues → redemption fund (entitlement, not key possession); contingency fund for residual fairness. See Guiding Principles. |
| Aug–Sep 2026 | First-receiver exclusion and labeling limitations formalized; claim-standard wording tightened so redemption cannot become a refund window for exploiters. Genesis coin classes clarified (expunge / redemption / contingency). |
| Sep 2026 | Full BTCP development stack realignment: chain parameters and the Rust node move to their own workstream (W9); DEX interoperability split to W10; W1 focuses on the clean UTXO and genesis allocations. Critical path becomes W1 → W9 → W2/W3/W4 → W7/W8. |
| Sep 2026 | Node fork work advances on Zebra 6.3.0 (network identity, Equihash 192,7 penalization). Few remaining parameter choices pending, such as block time/retarget and emission schedule (waits on the W1 genesis total). |
| Sep 2026 | Pre-sanitization UTXO set generated at snapshot height 680,000 directly from the chain data, and reproduced byte for byte to confirm it. Every later step starts from this set. |
| 12 Oct 2026 | Interim sanitized UTXO published. Any holder can look up an address on this site and see both its pre-sanitization and its interim post-sanitization balance, one address at a time. The figures were refined through October as audit findings and public forensics submissions were reviewed. |
| Oct 2026 | Full audit of the sanitization code completed. Every stage from raw chain data to the genesis set was re-derived by separately written code, and every figure reconciled exactly. |
| 1 Nov 2026 | Public forensics form closed. Every submission received has been reviewed. |
| Now | Node and launch preparation continue. Balances stay interim until launch, because a late confirmation from an operational counterparty could still change them. |
Where this sits on the relaunch path
At a stakeholder level the sequence is:
- Freeze a cleaned transparent UTXO and genesis allocations under the guiding principles (W1)
- Bring up the modern Rust node with that genesis overlay and locked parameters (W9)
- Provide holders the opportunity to verify balances once sanitized UTXO finalized (W2)
- Ship wallet / light surfaces (W3 / W4) and the official public website (possibly adapt this website if the original domain is not timeously returned by current custodial party) (W8)
- Later: DEX liquidity (W10) and optional governance (W5)