Bismuth is both a blockchainprotocol and a platform at the same time. The platform features a creative approach to database scaling, limits contract execution, and introduces the concept of private contracts to users. This private contract requires users willing to participate on the platform while keeping the contracts publicly verifiable through alternative means. According to its website, in Bismuth, users can choose from many open source projects and use plugins to limitlessly extend scaling capabilities and options through selective node behavior and customized layers.

According to its whitepaper, the Bismuth project aims to make Bismuth's core node well documented, streamlined, and efficient. This framework would encourage future extensions and applications built on Bismuth; to use the plugin system and separate repositories. Besides these supports, the platform also features:

Further, to support this overall framework, Bismuth introduced its cryptocurrency, the BIS token. BIS is the native tokenof the Bismuth ecosystem. The BIS is a partially ERC-20 compliant token, which supports all operational activity on the platform and is used to reward node operators of the network.   

Bismuth was founded in 2015 by Jan Kucera, whose goal was to bring simplicity, efficiency, and innovation to the cryptocurrency space. The other core team members are Sylvian and Geir Hovland, who focus on research and development. Further, the token of the platform has a total supply of 63.9 million BIS tokens.