I do not understand the claim made in this BUIP that “over time, BUIPs have come to be raised for operational matters”.
BUIPs have always been used for operational matters and other things unrelated to BU officer elections and the full node including but not limited to staffing, how to manage BUs funds, participating in events/conferences, BU processes and policies in general, and other non full node projects.
The first time a BUIP was used for operational matters was in BUIP025: BU “Bronze Sponsor” at Scaling Bitcoin, Milan, Italy posted in August 2016 by Solex less than 1 year from the founding of BU (the date of the first BUIP).
In the original articles of confederation (prior to formal BU company formation) BUIPs on operational matters were specifically mentioned
and are continued under the general BUIP as a choice for a type of BUIP in the current BU company articles (operational things do not fall under the scope of other outlined BUIP types).
Why outline/define these if they were not intended for use?
Of the 220 BUIPs that have been created thus far (BUIP 9 was never used) at least one third (~35%+ depending on how you categorise a few of them) of them have either been firmly or partially in the operational category. For clarity, when I say “partially in the operational category” I mean BUIPs that have been about allocating funding (an operational matter) for a development project unrelated to the full node without a full technical specification on how the project is to be done.
Operational BUIPS (count: 62)
-BUIP025: BU “Bronze Sponsor” at Scaling Bitcoin, Milan, Italy
-BUIP026: (passed) Bounties for Software Exploits
-BUIP027: (passed) Satoshi’s Vision - Development & Scaling Conference
-BUIP034: (passed) Ecosystem Outreach for Onchain Scaling
-BUIP043: (closed) Exploring the Bitcoin Network
-BUIP044: Development Process
-BUIP046: (passed) Faster, Higher Quality Publication Process for the Bitcoin Research Journal Ledger
-BUIP062: Funded Development, aka Devpool
-BUIP066: Ecosystem Outreach for Onchain Scaling, Part II
-BUIP068: (passed) Satoshi’s Vision 2 - Conference
-BUIP069: Academic paper - Mining, Taxation and Public Goods in Bitcoin
-BUIP071: (passed) Make Bitcoin Cash the “Release” Version of Bitcoin Unlimited
-BUIP072: Partially re-weight BU’s funds towards BCH
-BUIP073: (closed) Fully re-weight BU’s funds towards BCH
-BUIP074: Sell the Bitcoin Gold portion of BU’s funds for BCH
-BUIP089: (passed) Blockchain Engineer Services Contract
-BUIP091: (passed) Move the official BU repository and issue tracker to GitLab
-BUIP092: (passed) Workshop on Instant Transactions for Bitcoin
-BUIP098: (passed) Bitcoin Unlimited’s Strategy for the November 2018 Hard Fork
-BUIP103: (passed) Let’sBuildBCH! @ Satoshi’s Coffee-house - Conference
-BUIP106: (withdrawn) License Bitcoin Unlimited software under GPLv3
-BUIP111: Use BTC over BCH or BSV
-BUIP121: (passed) Create formal BCH specifications
-BUIP122: (closed) Remove Norway from membership
-BUIP123: (closed) Remove imaginary username from membership
-BUIP125: (passed) Remove Norway from membership
-BUIP127: (closed) Partially re-weight funds, 50% BTC to BCH
-BUIP128: (passed) Fund the Developer
-BUIP132: (passed) Ecosystem Outreach & Marketing for BU & On-chain Scaling
-BUIP134: (passed) Fund another Developer
-BUIP137: (passed) Funded Development, aka Devpool3
-BUIP138: (passed) Fund BU’s Chief Scientist
-BUIP141: (closed) Restrict voting rights for Non-publicly identified members
-BUIP145: (passed) Additional funding for bitcoin cash specification
-BUIP147: (passed) Fund Developer 2
-BUIP148: (passed) Ecosystem Outreach & Marketing for BU & On-chain Scaling 2
-BUIP150: B.U. Incorporated office admin
-BUIP153: BU Blockparty - Let’s Get Building On Bitcoin Cash!
-BUIP157: Continue Funding a Developer
-BUIP159: Ecosystem Outreach & Marketing for BU & On-chain Scaling 2021
-BUIP160: BCH Developer On-ramp System
-BUIP162: The BU Mining Reward Guarantee
-BUIP163: Ongoing Publication Grant to the Journal Ledger
-BUIP167: Hire talent to conduct consensus building work
-BUIP174: Funded Development, aka Devpool4
-BUIP176: Flexibility for Long-term Developers
-BUIP179: Ecosystem Outreach & Marketing for BU & On-chain Scaling 2022
-BUIP184: Nexa Marketing Budget
-BUIP185: Nexa Infrastructure & Strategy
-BUIP186: Mid-Tier Exchange Listing Fee
-BUIP190: B.U. Team NEX Vesting Rewards
-BUIP191: Nexa Growth Plan Community Funded Projects
-BUIP193: Bitcoin Unlimited be a “Customer” for a student project at NTNU
-BUIP194: Flexibility for Long-term Developers 2023
-BUIP196: Marketing Team Budget Increase
-BUIP201: NEXA 1st Hackathon
-BUIP202: Hire additional developers
-BUIP204 B.U. Participation in the Australian Crypto Convention 2024
-BUIP205: Fund Bitcoin Unlimited and Nexa Marketing and Social Media Hires
-BUIP209: B.U. Long-term Mission Focus on NEXA
-BUIP211: Continuing the Publication Grant to Ledger Journal
-BUIP212: B.U. Key Person Self-insurance Policy
BUIPs that are about an operational decision to fund or adopt a development project unrelated to full node (count 17)
-BUIP030: (closed) Website Enhancements at bitcoinunlimited.info
-BUIP035: (passed) New Bitcoin Unlimited Website
-BUIP065: Gigablock Testnet Initiative
-BUIP126: (passed) Planet-on-a-LAN stress test model network
-BUIP129: (passed) Finish and Productize the BU voting system
-BUIP142: (closed) Create Bitcoin Cash testdata
-BUIP152: Announcing Wally Wallet
-BUIP173: Join and support BMP for BCH development
-BUIP181: BU Mobile Wallet Project
-BUIP182: Fund Rostrum Electrum server development
-BUIP187: CashScript Port To Nexa
-BUIP189: Token Minting Tool - Basic
-BUIP195: Nexa UltraScale Testnet Initiative
-BUIP197: BIPs32-39-44 HD functions for Falcon PQC - Public Bounty
-BUIP198: Ledger Embedded App Development
-BUIP199: NexScript Phase 2
-BUIP200: Tokenize Phase 2
I may have missed some BUIPs and not everyone may agree with all my categorisations for the ones I have included but the point is that operational BUIPs are not a new phenomenon and moving all of them under executive discretion is a significant change to how BU has been operating.
The oddity out of historical operations was 2025 when conferences and events were funded without the approval of BUIPs which have been historically required to allocate funding for things.