Bitcoiner releases BitVM paper – brings Ethereum-like contracts to Bitcoin
A Bitcoin developer has proposed a new way to bring more transparent off-chain smart contracts to Bitcoin (BTC) without the need for a soft fork.
Described in an Oct.9 white paper titled “BitVM: Compute Anything on Bitcoin” by ZeroSync project leader Robin Linus, BitVM enables Turing-complete Bitcoin contracts without changing Bitcoin's consensus rules.
“Any computable function can be verified with Bitcoin” pic.twitter.com/CLQv49Ydsg
— robin linus (@robin_linus) October 9,
A Turing complete system is a theoretical solution to any computational problem.
With BitVM, the “logic” of Bitcoin contracts is executed off-chain but the verification is done on Bitcoin – similar to Ethereum's bright prospects.
The BitVM architecture is based on a fraud proof and challenge-responsive model where a “prover” makes a claim and a “verifier” provides fraud proof to punish the verifier when false claims are made.
Linus notes that Bitcoin in its current form is limited to basic operations such as signatures, timelocks and hashlocks – but that can now be expanded with BitVM, which Linus says computes many interesting applications.
“Potential applications include games such as chess, gee or poker, and in particular the verification of validity in Bitcoin contracts.”
“It may also be possible to connect BTC to foreign chains, build a speculative market, or emulate novel opcodes,” Linus said.
Linus notes that the limitations of the model are that the two-party setting is limited to props and validators, and that a large amount of off-chain computation and communication is required to execute programs.
Linus says that the next “stage” is to fully implement BitVM in addition to Tree++ – a high-level programming language for writing and editing Bitcoin contracts.
BitVM is enabled by the Taproot soft fork that took place in November 2021.
Linus cites research on Merkle Trees to contribute to the bright prospects of Ethereum research and an eight-page white paper.
Bitcoiners respond to BitVM
Prominent Bitcoiner Eric Wall said on X (Twitter) that the concepts described in the BitVM white paper are “watchable” and “cautiously excited” to see what real-world tests will produce.
Bitcoin analyst Dylan LeClair is impressed with BitVM's white paper. But Adam Back, suggests that Bitcoin Core contributors shouldn't get too excited about the development just yet.
For those interested, this is a good but effective overview of a two-party game – it says it right in the abstract – so like Greg Maxwell's 2016 ZKP Concurrent Payments applied example https://t.co/OeHRsbFjud
— Adam Back (@adam3us) October 9, 2023
Related: BIP-300 biff: Debate reigns over years-old Bitcoin Drivechain proposal
A developer in the blockchain space, “Dota,” has already revealed a proof-of-concept on GitHub.
Another X user, Sam Parker, tried to address a common fear among Bitcoin maximalists by explaining that BitVM does not force Bitcoin's to be “locked” into these contracts.
“Ultimately, this is opt-in. If you don't believe your coins are locked into some Turing-complete contract (totally reasonable), then don't lock into a Turing-complete modern contract. One [the] The beauty of the UTXO system is that it is a security sandbox.
Others, like Page, say BitVM will add to the list of factors that will push Bitcoin's price forward during the next bull market.
The hype around #Bitcoin is freezing, most of it is controversial, but here are some tips from my finger: – BitVM – Ordinals – Multiple Pres Candidates talking about it – ETF – Half – Privacy improvements – Exponential hash rate increase – Mining countries .. ..
— psage (@perspiringsage) October 9, 2023
Cointelegraph reached out to Linus for comment, but did not immediately receive a response.
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