One Year Since the First Commit

The first commit for EarthBucks can be found in the open-source repo on GitHub at github.com/earthbucks/earthbucks. It was published on March 24, 2024. I thought now would be a good time to provide an overview of the project.

What is EarthBucks?

EarthBucks is a from-scratch new blockchain that is a spiritual successor to Bitcoin, designed to enable electronic cash first and foremost and all other uses of blockchain technology second, such as tokens and smart contracts.

EarthBucks has the following properties:

• 42 million EBX (exactly twice Bitcoin’s 21 million BTC)
• 10-minute block time
• Four-year halving schedule
• GPU-based proof-of-work algorithm
• No maximum block size
• Transactions have multiple inputs and outputs with a FORTH-like scripting language very similar to Bitcoin’s Script
• Blocks have a Merkle tree of transactions, just like Bitcoin

Differences from Bitcoin

The biggest difference between EarthBucks and Bitcoin is that mines on EarthBucks must identify themselves with a domain name. This contrasts with Bitcoin’s implied but ineffective anonymity for mines. EarthBucks recognizes that mines cannot actually be anonymous, because they can always be found with network analysis, so instead leverages their identity in the protocol, which enables instant transactions and instant block propagation.

Besides technology, EarthBucks is governed differently than Bitcoin. EarthBucks recognizes that Bitcoin is de facto controlled by an unincorporated company of contributors. Instead of dishonestly pretending that no humans control the protocol, EarthBucks honestly incorporates this company and formalizes control of the protocol. The role model for EarthBucks’ decentralization is the internet, which has centralized organizations like ICANN and IANA that oversee the protocol and network. EarthBucks Inc., a for-profit corporation, owns the protocol (and the “EarthBucks” brand) and is responsible for its development and maintenance.

Bear in mind that EarthBucks is a from-scratch new blockchain, so the number of differences from Bitcoin, all technical issues considered, is vast.

Why Create EarthBucks?

The original Bitcoin protocol with unlimited maximum block size and unlimited script is a nearly ideal protocol for electronic cash. Currently, this protocol is best embodied in Bitcoin Cash (not Bitcoin). However, there are some flaws with Bitcoin Cash, some minor and some major. The biggest flaw is that Bitcoin Cash has burned through the mining subsidy without sufficient adoption, for complex historical reasons, leading to stagnant growth. The goal of EarthBucks is to fix all technical issues and governance issues with a mining subsidy that starts over. This necessitated a total rewrite of the software to guarantee no legacy baggage was included in the new blockchain. By starting over with the mining subsidy, it is the opinion of the author that EarthBucks is better grounded than Bitcoin Cash or any other blockchain to achieve the ultimate goal of global electronic cash.

What’s Next?

The EarthBucks blockchain launched on November 4, 2024. The stable 1.0 release launched on February 2, 2025. The next milestone will be EarthBucks 2.0.

More Information

The primary authoritative source of information about EarthBucks is the blog hosted at earthbucks.com/blog. The blog is regularly updated and should be followed by everyone interested in the project.

The open-source repo hosted at github.com/earthbucks/earthbucks is the primary source of code and documentation.

The most important comprehensive overview of EarthBucks so far is this document: EarthBucks 2025: A Vision for a Global Electronic Cash System.