Burak Launches New Bitcoin Layer 2 Called ‘Brollups’

Burak, the developer who hacked Bitcoins Lightning Network with a 998-of-999 multi-signature Taproot transaction, has created a new Bitcoin layer 2.

A Bitcoin developer who previously showcased the ability to hack the Lightning Network has created a new layer 2 for BTC.

The layer 2, dubbed “Brollups,” doesn’t require a fork of Bitcoin’s consensus code. This is in contrast to another layer 2 that Burak has received donations for, which would require a fork.

Brollups also don’t rely on any covenant operation codes, such as CheckTemplateVerify or TransactionHash, in Bitcoin Core software.

Burak, a Bitcoin developer, earned notoriety on October 9, 2022, when he managed to break LND, the most popular implementation of Bitcoin’s most widely used layer 2, Lightning.

While the achievement wasn’t malicious and he didn’t steal any funds with the stunt, Burak simply highlighted another unintended consequence of Taproot, one of Bitcoin’s most complicated and counterintuitive software upgrades.

During the initial stages of marketing Taproot, several proponents touted its ability to introduce smart contracts on Bitcoin and largely deprecate aspects of Ethereum.

However, less than 2% of Bitcoin transactions utilized Taproot until Casey Rodarmor launched his NFT and token platform Ordinals.

By May 7, 2023, approximately four months since the launch of Ordinals, over three-quarters of Bitcoin transactions utilized Taproot.

By showcasing the unintended consequences of Taproot, Burak became a renowned developer. As it turns out, Taproot also enabled a hacker to freeze thousands of bitcoins within the Lightning network.

Burak is now attempting to demonstrate how Bitcoin — without any fork or covenant OpCodes — can emulate covenants.

Many rollups and layer 2s inherently involve trust, with early versions of Ethereum’s most popular layer 2s, Arbitrum and Optimism, relying on leadership control of private keys over a multi-sig smart contract.

If a layer 2 reintroduces trust and centralization anyhow, why is a separate token like Optimism’s OP or Arbitrum’s ARB necessary at all?

Coinbase has launched a layer 2, Base, without any proprietary token. Base does, however, rely heavily on Coinbase as a trusted party.

Similarly, Burak’s Brollups introduce trust in a small group of Brollup operators and enable cheap, fast Bitcoin transactions without introducing an additional token.