In January 2020, Bitcoin Magazine published a description of “Why Proof of Reserves is Important to Bitcoin[1].”
The timing was no accident - the recent anniversary of the QuadrigaCX’s implosion[2] kept fresh in many of our minds the risks we were striving to allay, especially here in Canada.
Two years might not sound like a long time to the average person, but it’s a significant stretch of history in the world of cryptocurrencies - it’s more than one-seventh of Bitcoin’s entire existence. By looking at industry progress in terms Proof of Reserves, we can see just how much can happen in that span of time.
Meager Beginnings
In that early 2020 piece, Mauricio Di Bartolomeo was joining the chorus of several voices already advocating for this opportunity to accelerate Bitcoin’s rise in legitimacy and professionalism.
Jason Tyra had written[3] several[4] pieces[5] between 2014 and 2015. Steven Roose of Blockstream put forth some proposed standards[6] in early 2019, soon advocated for by Matt ฿ on a personal blog post[7] and Nic Carter had been banging his own drum, publishing several[8] articles[9] and podcast[10] interviews[11] on the topic[12], as well as using his extensive public reach to signal-boost the other advocates.
But real-world implementations were still thin on the ground, with little to show since 2014, when Kraken had sought to prove its reserves after the Mt. Gox debacle.
How exactly Proof of Reserves would emerge as a real-world phenomenon, remained to be seen.
Proof Of Reserve, No Matter The Reserve
Proof of Reserves is the extension of a rather simple observation; a service that holds
