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A Bitcoin developer has introduced a novel approach to enhance off-chain smart contracts on Bitcoin (BTC) without requiring a soft fork.
In a white paper released on Oct. 9, titled “BitVM: Compute Anything on Bitcoin,” Robin Linus, the project lead at ZeroSync, outlines how BitVM facilitates Turing-complete Bitcoin contracts without modifying Bitcoin’s consensus rules.
"Any computable function can be verified on Bitcoin"https://t.co/Itf9UHos0C pic.twitter.com/CLQv49Ydsg
— яobin linus (@robin_linus) October 9, 2023
A Turing Complete system is one that can theoretically resolve any computational issue.
With BitVM, the “logic” of Bitcoin contracts would be processed off-chain, while verification would occur on Bitcoin — akin to Ethereum’s optimistic rollups.
The architecture of BitVM relies on fraud proofs and a challenge-response mechanism, where a “prover” can assert claims, and a “verifier” can execute a fraud-proof to penalize the prover for any false assertions.
Linus noted that Bitcoin, in its existing state, is confined to fundamental operations like signatures, timelocks, and hashlocks — but this can now be expanded with BitVM, which Linus claims can facilitate a variety of intriguing applications.
“Potential applications include games like Chess, Go, or Poker, and particularly, verification of validity proofs in Bitcoin contracts.”
“Moreover, it may be feasible to connect BTC to external chains, create a prediction market, or replicate innovative opcodes,” Linus stated.
Linus mentioned that a constraint of the model is its limitation to a two-party arrangement involving a prover and a verifier, and that a considerable amount of off-chain computation and communication is required to run programs.
Linus indicated that the next “milestone” is to fully implement BitVM alongside Tree++ — a high-level programming language designed for writing and debugging Bitcoin contracts.
BitVM is made possible by the Taproot soft fork that occurred in November 2021.
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Linus referenced Ethereum research on optimistic rollups and a study regarding Merkle Trees as contributing factors to the eight-page white paper.
Bitcoiners respond to BitVM
Notable Bitcoiner Eric Wall shared on X (Twitter) that the ideas presented in the BitVM white paper “check out” and expressed being “cautiously excited” to observe the real-world experiments that may arise from it.
Bitcoin analyst Dylan LeClair also expressed admiration for BitVM’s white paper. However, Adam Back, a contributor to Bitcoin Core, advised that individuals should temper their enthusiasm regarding the development for the time being.
for people getting (over) excited, this is cool but effectively a generalization of a two-party game – it says right in the abstract – so it's a bit like Greg Maxwell's 2016 ZKP contingent payments implemented example https://t.co/OeHRsbFjud
— Adam Back (@adam3us) October 9, 2023
Related: BIP-300 biff: Debate reignites over years-old Bitcoin Drivechain proposal
A blockchain developer known as “dotta” pointed out that a proof-of-concept is already available on GitHub.
Another user on X, Sam Parker, sought to alleviate a common concern among Bitcoin maximalists by clarifying that BitVM will not necessitate Bitcoin to be “locked” into these contracts.
“Finally, this is opt-in. If you don’t trust your coins being locked to some Turing complete contract (totally reasonable) then don’t lock them to a Turing complete smart contract. One of [the] beauties of the UTXO system is security sandboxing.”
Others, including “psage,” believe that BitVM contributes to the factors that will drive Bitcoin’s price upward in the forthcoming bull market.
The bullish stuff around #Bitcoin is snowballing, lots of them controversial, nevertheless a few off my finger tips:
– BitVM
– Ordinals
– Multiple Pres Candidates talking about it
– ETF
– Halving
– Privacy improvements
– Exponential Hash Rate increase
– Countries mining
….— psage (@perspiringsage) October 9, 2023
Cointelegraph reached out to Linus for comments but did not receive an immediate reply.
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