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Coin Telegraph

Blockchain data from Etherscan suggest Scroll’s mainnet was live over a week ago.

Scroll, a new contender in the zero-knowledge Ethereum Virtual Machine (zkEVM) space that works to scale the blockchain, has confirmed the launch of its mainnet.

The team behind Scroll announced the launch in an Oct. 17 post and added that existing applications and developer tool kits on Ethereum can now migrate to the new scaling solution.

“Everything functions right out of the box,” the Scroll team said.

After more than two years of building, we are thrilled to announce the launch of Scroll Mainnet.

As we open the doors to Mainnet, we want to take a moment to reflect on our journey thus far pic.twitter.com/WKfkjyIkB0
— Scroll (@Scroll_ZKP) October 17, 2023

A zkEVM solution such as Scroll’s aims to provide lower transaction costs at a higher throughput for decentralized applications running on Ethereum.

It works by batching thousands of transactions off-chain into one, then submitting a proof consisting of a minimal data summary to Ethereum’s mainnet.

Blockchain data suggests Scroll had withheld the news that its mainnet was live since Oct. 8 — the date at which the first smart contract was deployed on thScroll mainnet, according to Etherscan data.

Scroll said the mainnet launch came after 15 months of extensive testing and security audits across three separate testnets.

“Our bridge and rollup contracts were audited by OpenZeppelin and Zellic,” Scroll added. Its zkEVM circuits were reviewed by Trail of Bits, Zellic, and KALOS.

Across its three testnets over 450,000 smart contracts were deployed enabling over 90 million transactions across 9 million blocks. 280,000 ZK-proofs were also generated the firm said.

pic.twitter.com/BujREyNGqi
— Scroll (@Scroll_ZKP) October 17, 2023

About a month ago, Scroll co-founder Ye Zhang told Cointelegraph Scroll would launch with centralized features but plans to increasingly decentralize over time.

“We will have a centralized sequencer and the central approver button,” Zhang said. He added a plan is in place to remove that button, however.

“We have a roadmap [...] To solve the single point of failure and to incentivize the community to build better proving hardware.”

Zhang said the Scroll team will also pitch several proposals to let the community discuss what’s best for Scroll moving forward.

Scroll was founded in 2021 with the goal to be more community-driven. Other zkEVM solutions working to scale Ethereum include Polygon, zkSync, StarkWare and Immutable.

Jordi Baylina, technical lead of Polygon Hermez zkEVM, recently told Cointelegraph that such competition in the zkEVM space is only going to make the Ethereum ecosystem more robust:

“Having different projects adds a lot of experience, and it’s also a way to test different approaches, ways of handling things or solving things,” he said.

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BitVM’s goal is to scale Bitcoin, not be a pseudo-Ethereum, says dev

October 12, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Altcoins

Building a decentralized exchange on Bitcoin would be a “step backward,” for example, said Bitcoin developer Super Testnet.

One of the developers working on “BitVM” — a Bitcoin-based virtual machine — reiterates the tech is intended to scale Bitcoin rather than launching Ethereum-like decentralized finance applications on the network.

BitVM’s whitepaper was released by ZeroSync’s project lead Robin Linus on Oct. 10 with technical support provided by pseudonymous developer “Super Testnet” — implementing BitVM’s first proof-of-concept and working on expanding BitVM’s capabilities.

Upon its release, some industry pundits formed the impression that BitVM would bring DeFi to Bitcoin like what the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) did for Ethereum.

Lightning also fall short in the scaling department. It's nowhere near solving scalability.
We need more complementary things.

> this is just another defi on bitcoin attempt.

Again, the motivation behind BitVM by the author was not DeFi. It was scaling.
— Hampus (@hampus_s) October 12, 2023

However, Super Testnet tells Cointelegraph that BitVM is scaling-focused rather than being about implementing smart contracts and an avalanche of altcoins:

“The real killer app is scaling Bitcoin. [Robin Linus isn’t] a big fan of smart contracts. He's not a big fan of increasing Bitcoin's expressivity. He really is interested in making it so that Bitcoin can process millions of transactions per second.”

Super Testnet said he doesn’t want BitVM to be flooded with (EVM)-like tokens because it’ll bring bad actors to Bitcoin:

“I don't want to see everything from the Ethereum ecosystem because most of it is Ponzi schemes.”

Building a decentralized exchange on Bitcoin would be a “step backward,” he added.

Meanwhile, Super Testnet notes that BitVM won’t be an “instant death” for Ethereum’s altcoins, which some have suggested — though it could take demand away from them.

Hot Off the Press: BitVM White Paper Drops! Experience a groundbreaking computing approach for smart contracts on #Bitcoin

Unlock functionalities previously assumed to demand a soft fork with these enhanced smart contracts.

Could this be the end of #altcoins? pic.twitter.com/1GA43VE7If
— RichQuack (@RichQuack) October 10, 2023

The developer hopes that Bitcoin (BTC) essentially remains the only monetary unit on the Bitcoin network:

“A big property that makes Bitcoin important is maintaining one monetary asset that everyone can agree on instead of having floating exchange rates that are a burden for commerce,” he said.

BitVM could patch up one of Lightning’s flaws

Meanwhile, Super Testnet said BitVM’s intended payment infrastructure will also aim to improve one of the Lightning Network’s shortfalls — payment reliability.

“Lightning is wonderful as a system and it's much faster than probably anything we can make on Bitcoin. But one thing that Lightning doesn't do well is payment reliability.”

River, a Bitcoin-only exchange, revealed its Lightning payments success rate was 99.7% in August across 308,000 transactions.

He hopes BitVM can reach 60% of the transaction speed of the Lightning network.

BitVM: The 24 hour update.

After thousands of Twitter posts and hours of spaces and discussions, we know much more about BitVM than we did yesterday. Here’s a quick update:

Excitement

1. BitVM is a new computing paradigm that leverages the universal gate NAND (along with other… pic.twitter.com/zBws7gOhjA
— Bob Bodily, PhD | #BTC #ETH #ICP (@BobBodily) October 11, 2023

The developer has also stressed that BitVM is optional like the Lightning Network and anyone will be able to transfer BTC or Bitcoin-assets out of the virtual machine back into cold storage or wherever they were beforehand.

“No one is forcing you to send your money into a virtual machine. If you want your money safe, keep it safe.”

'Compute anything' misconception

Super Testnet also clarified a possible misunderstanding, explaining that BitVM, in its current state, cannot compute “anything” like its whitepaper suggests.

“We have to build more primitives in order to make it so that anything can run in it.” Implementing SHA-256 and encryption are some of the additions that need to be made, they noted.

However, Super Testnet revealed on Oct. 12 that BitVM is already processing basic functions:

Update: bitvm can perform *3* functions now and I'm in the middle of making a webpage where you can play with it pic.twitter.com/bXYOZKx2GV
— Super Testnet (@super_testnet) October 12, 2023

Linus and Super Testnet met at a Bitcoin conference around 18 months ago and have been working to scale Bitcoin at the scripting level almost ever since, he said.

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Bitcoin needs Ethereum VM to reach its full potential — Web3 exec

October 10, 2023 Coin Telegraph

bip-300

Botanix Labs founder Willem Schroé argues a “huge amount of value” from real-world assets will be captured on Bitcoin, provided it connects to the Ethereum Virtual Machine.

Mainstream Bitcoin (BTC) adoption won’t happen until it bridges to the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) — the first point of entry for many real-world assets moving on-chain, a Web3 executive argues.

Speaking to Cointelegraph, the founder of cross-chain infrastructure firm Botanix Labs, Willem Schroé, claimed Bitcoin “needs to start playing in the EVM world” for it to build real-world use cases to increase its adoption and utility.

“Bitcoin is the most technologically secure and truly decentralized protocol [and] the EVM has proven itself to be the application layer for the global financial system,” Schroé said.

Our Botanix Protocol positions Ethereum as a Layer-2 solution on top of #Bitcoin.

We've added Ethereum onto the Bitcoin Network's secure foundation to harness the security of its Proof-of-Work mechanism.

Also, enjoy the developmental ease of Ethereum.
— Botanix Labs (@BotanixLabs) September 25, 2023

While Bitcoin is typically used as a peer-to-peer payment system or for storing value, Schroé said its potential won’t be fulfilled unless the cryptocurrency can connect to the broader financial system, such as with security and commodity markets.

Connecting Bitcoin to Ethereum-based real-world assets, stablecoins, decentralized finance and nonfungible tokens via the EVM is the first step in that direction, Schroé argued.

“That’s a huge amount of value and development waiting to happen.”

Schroé’s Botanix Labs aims to connect the Bitcoin and Ethereum ecosystems through its “Spiderchain” — a proof-of-stake layer 2 that implements EVM to EVM bridges to enable Bitcoin to interact with the EVM.

Bitcoin and Ethereum may seem like opposites, but they can co-exist and complement each other.

However, this does present some challenges.

Multi-chain ecosystems with cross-chain bridges can have security and centralization risks, hindering the potential of collaboration.
— Botanix Labs (@BotanixLabs) October 2, 2023

Staked assets are secured by a decentralized multisignature mechanism, and its design doesn’t require Bitcoin to be forked.

Schroé believes the current solutions involving wrapped Bitcoin on Ethereum and other EVM-compatible chains are problematic and argues they are susceptible to censorship and regulatory scrutiny, as they’re operated by the centralized United States-based company BitGo.

A similar proposal to bring Ethereum functionality to Bitcoin is also being proposed through “drivechains,” also known as the Bitcoin Improvement Proposal-300, which Bitcoin developers are again discussing. If implemented, it would allow “sidechains” to be built on the network.

On Oct. 9, Bitcoin developer Robin Linus released a white paper titled “BitVM: Compute Anything on Bitcoin,” which details how Ethereum-like optimistic rollup smart contracts could be made on the Bitcoin network.

Unlike the Spiderchain, BIP-300 would require Bitcoin to soft fork and would be activated by miners — similar to the Taproot soft fork in November 2021 that paved the way for the NFT-emulating Ordinals and BRC-20 tokens.

The BIP’s creator, Paul Sztroc, says those favoring BIP-300 believe it will offer new privacy and scaling use cases to Bitcoin, among other benefits.

So far at @tabconf:

* Many pro Bip300 -- popular usecases are Privacy, Scaling, and experimentation (get new OP codes now)
* Very popular question is: when is my debate with Peter Todd (Friday at 2 PM)
* Many complained about off-base Twitter dialog and nonsense propaganda
*…
— Paul Sztorc (@Truthcoin) September 7, 2023

However, not everyone likes the idea of expanding Bitcoin’s ecosystem beyond its current use cases.

Cory Klippsten, the CEO of BTC-only exchange Swan Bitcoin, believes drivechains and solutions that bring other assets to Bitcoin will bring an influx of scammers.

Saifedean Ammous, the author of The Bitcoin Standard, opposes the idea of issuing altcoins on Bitcoin, suggesting that “good money” is the only token needed.

People only think tokens are a good idea because we live in a world of broken money. A good money is the only token anyone ever needs. Bitcoin is going to detokenize the world. https://t.co/q8Nhc7XcOX
— Saifedean Ammous (@saifedean) August 28, 2023

However, Schroé said he thinks bringing together Bitcoin and Ethereum could produce a new array of applications “with decentralization and security as first principles.“

“EVM is the winning virtual machine, and Bitcoin is the best money,” he said.

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Ethereum Virtual Machine

BitVM could patch up one of Lightning’s flaws

'Compute anything' misconception

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