BitVM2: The Latest Bitcoin Scaling Solution Promises 'Major Improvements'

The creators of the Bitcoin scaling solution Bitcoin Virtual Machine (BitVM) have floated the second iteration of their sidechain, dubbed “BitVM2,” and the BitVM Bridge, which they say now offers “major improvements” to the original system.

The creators of Bitcoin scaling solution Bitcoin Virtual Machine (BitVM) have unveiled the second iteration of their sidechain and the BitVM Bridge, touting “major improvements” to the original system.In an Aug. 15 post to X, BitVM co-founder Alexei Zamyatin shared an overview of a new whitepaper that introduces a fresh framework for how BitVM2 and the BitVM Bridge would function.ZeroSync project lead and BitVM creator Robin Linus first unveiled BitVM in October last year in a bid to bring off-chain smart contracts to the Bitcoin network without requiring a soft fork.One of the main improvements of the latest version is that it will now be “permissionless,” meaning anyone can challenge suspicious transactions, with only three transactions now required to complete a challenge.The previous version of BitVM required up to 70 transactions to complete a challenge, and only a small number of specific parties could make challenge requests.BitVM2 is also designed to be more efficient in terms of capital utilization and lock-up periods for users transferring their Bitcoin to the rollup and withdrawing it.Overall, BitVM2's main focus is to enable a rollup — a separate network built on Bitcoin — capable of processing transactions more efficiently but with similar security to the original Bitcoin network.The BitVM Bridge would allow users to safely transfer their Bitcoin to the rollup and withdraw it, with shorter lock-up periods and smaller upfront capital requirements.The paper was led by ZeroSync project lead Robin Linus and other co-authors, including Zamyatin, Lukas Aumayr, Andrea Pelosi, Zeta Avirikioti, and Matteo Maffei.BitVM was unveiled in an Oct. 9 whitepaper titled “BitVM: Compute Anything on Bitcoin” — enabling Turing-complete Bitcoin contracts without altering any of Bitcoin’s consensus rules.Related: Bitcoin needs De Fi, consumer apps for mass adoption — L2 devsThe paper’s release inspired a wave of development on the Bitcoin network, with a swathe of Bitcoin-based layer-2 networks and rollups popping up in its wake.Developers of the BitVM project have reiterated that BitVM is intended to scale the Bitcoin network rather than launch Ethereum-like decentralized finance (DeFi) applications on Bitcoin.Pseudonymous BitVM developer Super Testnet told Cointelegraph in October 2023 that the overarching goal of BitVM was to increase Bitcoin’s scalability above all else.He said he didn’t want BitVM to be flooded with EVM-like tokens because it would potentially attract bad actors to Bitcoin and said building a decentralized exchange on Bitcoin would be a “step backward.”Magazine: AI may already use more power than Bitcoin — and it threatens Bitcoin mining