Robin Linus, a prominent Bitcoin developer, has introduced a new iteration of his groundbreaking concept aimed at making the original Bitcoin blockchain more programmable. The latest version, dubbed “BitVM2,” offers significant enhancements that could bring the concept closer to real-world implementation.
According to a white paper released on Thursday, Linus, along with five co-authors, has refined a method that utilizes cryptography to compress programs into sub-programs, allowing them to be executed within Bitcoin transactions. The new approach dramatically reduces the complexity of verifying these programs, requiring just three on-chain transactions instead of the 70 needed in the previous version.
A major upgrade in BitVM2 is the introduction of “permissionless challenging,” a feature that enables anyone to challenge suspicious transactions. This marks a significant improvement from the original BitVM, released last October, where only a select group of operators could initiate challenges.
“This design gives us major improvements,” explained Alexei Zamyatin, one of the co-authors and a contributor to the project, in a video interview with CoinDesk. “We now have a full and comprehensive writeup of the BitVM paradigm.”
Linus, a core contributor at the ZeroSync Association, a Swiss non-profit organization, worked alongside Zamyatin and other co-authors, including Lukas Aumayr, Andrea Pelosi, Zeta Avarikioti, and Matteo Maffei. The project has garnered attention for its potential to enhance Bitcoin’s capabilities without altering its core code—an essential factor given Bitcoin’s decentralized governance structure.
The BitVM2 could initially be applied to enable “rollups,” which are auxiliary networks on top of Bitcoin that offer faster and cheaper transactions while maintaining similar security standards. The publication of Linus’s original design has already sparked a surge in Bitcoin-based projects, with at least 83 layer-2 projects reported as of July.
Furthermore, the new paradigm could facilitate the creation of a blockchain “bridge,” allowing secure transfers of bitcoin to the rollup and back, ensuring safe withdrawal of deposits.
Despite Bitcoin’s proof-of-work consensus mechanism facing criticism for its environmental impact due to high electricity consumption, it remains the most secure blockchain, as evidenced by Bitcoin’s $1.2 trillion market value, surpassing all other cryptocurrencies combined.
“Our new bridge design is simpler and more capital efficient,” Linus shared with CoinDesk via Telegram. “The previous design caused liquidity issues both in terms of the amount and duration of collateral required by bridge operators. Now, it requires less capital and locks it for a shorter time.”
Related Topics:
