🤓 Enjoy Interview Summary with Bitlayer's Co-founder Kevin He
📄 Odaily Planet Daily spoke with Kevin He, who helped create @BitlayerLabs the first Layer 2 solution built on BitVM technology. His team recently rolled out a test version of their "Finality Bridge," which stands out as the first Bitcoin bridge actually using BitVM.
Kevin noted that even during slower times in Bitcoin's ecosystem, Bitlayer's technical team kept pushing boundaries with BitVM. Their work aims to create fresh opportunities for Bitcoin Layer 2 development.
🔑 Key Strengths of Bitlayer:
1. Security Meets Flexibility: BitVM lets them tap into Bitcoin's security while enabling more complex applications – something hard to balance before.
2. Speed: Because their Rollup approach sidesteps consensus protocols, things like message passing don’t slow it down.
3. Developer-Friendly: BitVM acts as a verification layer, meaning it can check transactions for different virtual machines (like Ethereum's EVM). Developers can basically use tools they already know.
💎 BitVM's New Approach:
Bitlayer blends ideas from both Optimistic and ZK Rollups. They use Optimistic Rollup’s framework to manage verification but add a twist: after bundling transactions, they generate zero-knowledge proofs.
The Bitcoin main chain then checks if these are valid. This effectively brings Ethereum’s Layer 2 verification style over to Bitcoin, tailored to Bitcoin’s unique design.
💥 Evolving Bitcoin Bridges:
Kevin explained how bridge tech has changed over time:
- First-gen bridges (like WBTC or cbBTC) relied on central control or groups holding keys (MPC multi-sig). Security depended heavily on most participants acting honestly.
- Second-gen (e.g., tBTC) moved to a Proof-of-Stake network off-chain. Nodes would agree on Bitcoin transactions via consensus. Better, but still needed most nodes to stay honest.
