While bridging Bitcoin has long been a technical and philosophical challenge, other blockchain networks have embraced interoperability with relative ease.
These difficulties arise from Bitcoin’s intentionally strict consensus rules and limited scripting language, which make cross-chain transactions cumbersome despite the demand for decentralized bridges.
Over the years, the Bitcoin Virtual Machine (BitVM) protocol was developed to address these limitations. However, there are trade-offs, including increased complexity and reduced decentralization.
Sergio Lerner, scientific expert at RootstockLabs, discussed the limitations of past approaches and the potential of Bitcoin (BTC) connectivity for the broader decentralized finance (DeFi) space in an exclusive interview with Cointelegraph.
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Bitcoin’s limitations
Bitcoin’s scripting language, while stable and secure, is not built to support the complex computations required to verify cross-chain transactions.
“Bitcoin didn’t have a language expressive enough to support (a decentralized bridge),” Lerner explained. These constraints have historically limited efforts to build fully distributed, minimally trust bridges.
The BitVM protocol solves some of these problems by introducing controversial computing to verify Bitcoin’s complex calculations, but Lerner noted that early versions were inefficient.
“The original white paper left many questions unanswered. So, together with RootstockLabs and Fairgate Labs, we took on the challenge of improving this by creating BitVMX.”
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Is it worth it?
BitVM protocols often rely on trusted parties or external committees to monitor and verify disputes on the network. This introduces new security assumptions and reduces Bitcoin’s decentralization.
“The limitation of all BitVM protocols is that they require a commitment to Bitcoin, and if there is no commitment, this must be emulated through a committee that co-signs a series of transactions,” Lerner said.
This approach requires at least one committee member to act honestly to keep the system secure.
“This limitation does not exist in two-party protocols based on BitVMX, such as payment channels,” Lerner said. “This only happens when the protocol needs to provide a public service to another unknown party.”
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Bitcoin Bridge Extension
Despite these challenges, Lerner emphasized that BitVMX provides an alternative method for bridging Bitcoin, allowing it to participate in a wider range of blockchain applications.
RootstockLabs scientific experts said BitVMX is “currently the cheapest and most resource-efficient computing protocol for Bitcoin,” making it a candidate for building a verification bridge for the network.
Nonetheless, Lerner acknowledged the need for rigorous testing and careful deployment to avoid risks, adding that teams rushing to deploy BitVM-based systems without proper testing are “playing with users’ money.”
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