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+# Rust Bitcoin Benchmarks
+
+Criterion based benchmarks for `rust-bitcoin`.
+
+## Minimum Supported Rust Version (MSRV)
+
+This crate’s MSRV is determined by its Criterion dependency. It currently requires **Rust 1.81**.
+This higher MSRV applies only to the benches crate and does not affect other crates in this repository.
+
+## Running the benchmarks
+
+Examples below are run from within the crates folder `benches/`, if running from the repo root pass in `--manifest-path benches/Cargo.toml`.
+
+Run all benchmarks in this crate:
+
+```bash
+cargo bench
+```
+
+Run a specific benchmark target:
+
+```bash
+cargo bench --bench block
+```
+
+Pass options through to Criterion (see [More information](#more-information) for details):
+
+```bash
+# Save current results as a baseline named "before-change"
+cargo bench -- --save-baseline before-change
+
+# Compare to the saved baseline
+cargo bench -- --baseline before-change
+```
+
+View reports:
+
+- Criterion writes detailed html reports that are linked to in `target/criterion/report/index.html`.
+
+## Adding a new benchmark
+
+1. Create a new Rust file for your benchmark in the subfolder for the crate e.g. `benches/bitcoin/base58.rs`.
+2. Add it in `benches/Cargo.toml` including the path, with `harness = false`:
+
+```toml
+[[bench]]
+name = "base58"
+path = "bitcoin/base58.rs"
+harness = false
+```
+
+3. Criterion code template:
+
+```rust
+use criterion::{criterion_group, criterion_main, Criterion};
+
+fn bench_new_bench(c: &mut Criterion) {
+    c.bench_function("new_bench", |b| {
+        b.iter(|| {
+            // Benchmark code
+        })
+    });
+}
+
+criterion_group!(benches, bench_new_bench);
+criterion_main!(benches);
+```
+
+## More information
+
+- Criterion Book: <https://bheisler.github.io/criterion.rs/book/>
+- Criterion GitHub: <https://github.com/bheisler/criterion.rs>
+
+## Licensing
+
+The code in this project is licensed under the [Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal license](../LICENSE).
+We use the [SPDX license list](https://spdx.org/licenses/) and [SPDX IDs](https://spdx.dev/ids/).