OP_NET will launch the “SlowFi” DeFi stack directly on Bitcoin L1
OP_NET is launching “SlowFi” decentralized finance (DeFi) on Bitcoin that uses standard Bitcoin transactions and native BTC payments, not a bridge, bundled asset or separate gas token.
According to Thursday's release shared with Cointelegraph, the project is part of a broader push to bring transaction and product-type activity directly to the bitcoin base layer, rather than routing it through sidechains, bridges or neighboring networks. OP_NET is betting that some users will accept slower and more expensive transactions in order to stay fully on Bitcoin.
According to Frederic Fosco, co-founder of OP_NET, which runs by Danny Plainview, applications run on standard Bitcoin (BTC) transactions using Taproot-based costs, and the platform's NativeSwap model is designed to support token swaps without capping BTC or separate gas assets. Plainview told Cointelegraph that every transaction on OP_NET is “only a Bitcoin transaction with BTC, the only gas asset.”
The startup's growing use of DeFi-style and data-heavy blockchains in Bitcoin will strengthen the network's payment market or spamming exchanges.
Plainview said the swap costs about $1 to $2 in normal payment conditions and about $10 to $20 when blocks are crowded, because users only pay regular Bitcoin network fees instead of separate gas tokens.
OP_NET describes the model as “SlowFi,” with Bitcoin's roughly 10-minute block times and congestion-driven withdrawals making liquidity sticky and generating long-lived Diffie cycles from faster chains.
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Critics say that OP_NET will lead to Ethereum-style Defi bloat
Plainview framed layer-1 DeFi as subsidies to support miner revenue are reduced, arguing that “miners are bleeding” due to Bitcoin’s halving. “The only thing keeping miners solvent is the payment market,” OP_NET said, noting that it won't change Bitcoin's consensus.
Related: Animoca, RootstockLabs Partner to Bring Bitcoin DeFi to Japanese Institutions
This view has drawn criticism from Bitcoin users who say that pushing DeFi-style activity into Layer 1 will destroy Bitcoin's financial focus or clog up space with unnecessary transactions. Some critics on X recently described OP_NET as an attempt to bring an Ethereum-style crypto infrastructure to Bitcoin.
Some senior experts have argued that any attempt to expand Bitcoin's use cases beyond money has led its proponents to attract “sh*tcoiners” as Bitcoiners.
Plainview pushed that any paid Taproot transaction should be considered a legitimate use of block space.
He warned that drawing moral lines around valid transactions would allow Bitcoin to be effectively regulated for anyone who defines those categories. And so he said.
The bottom line is that no one controls it.
OP_NET puts DeFi at the base layer of Bitcoin.
OP_NET enters a field already filled with attempts to bring programmability to Bitcoin via RSK and Stacks.
RSK operates as a separate Ethereum Virtual Machine-compatible sidechain with its own RBTC gas token and federated BTC peg, meaning users withdraw value from the mainnet and trust the federated to manage the bridge.
The stack, on the other hand, is a Bitcoin-embedded layer-2 with its own STX token and sBTC mechanism, which executes smart contracts on a chain that adapts to Bitcoin periodically instead of L1 transactions.
By placing execution and payments directly on Bitcoin and eliminating the capped BTC or new gas assets, Plainview is betting that some users will accept slower and more expensive transactions in order to remain entirely on the Bitcoin base layer.
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