Bitcoin & Past is an academic order by way of the crew at The Rollup fascinated with a untouched and rising elegance of developers within the Bitcoin ecosystem. Via areas, panels, and interactive shows, the target is to lend deep technical insights into cutting edge scaling tasks.
In our unedited quality for Bitcoin & Past, we’re exploring BOB, a copy, hybrid, layer answer that objectives to marry Bitcoin’s tough safety with the agility of Ethereum. We stuck up with Dom, co-founder of BOB, to grasp BOB’s staged solution to building and their untouched merged-mining protocol, Optimine.
Reigniting Innovation in Bitcoin Via Layer 2 Answers
From the onset, Dom used to be sunlit that BOB’s number one motivation has been “to make it a lot easier for people to build on Bitcoin.” He highlighted the immense alternative for Bitcoin to turn into as simply programmable as Ethereum life keeping up the tough safety it’s recognized for.
Like many others, he echoed his hold in high esteem for this tide of innovation lately energizing the Bitcoin ecosystem. “There are so many new projects now sharing that same vision. And we think it’s really worth it to bring all that innovation to Bitcoin.”
The crew at BOB has highlighted 3 facets they consider are very important for untouched layer 2 answers to thrive:
1. A safety and financial alignment with Bitcoin
2. Infrastructure for the developer ecosystem to thrive
3. Liquidity to get untouched tasks off the garden
“It’s about creating a network where liquidity and users can seamlessly transition between projects, enhancing the overall vibrancy of the platform.”
Dom additionally elaborated on BOB’s marketplace positioning: “Our approach is quite unique—we’re the only ones aiming to create what we call a hybrid L2.”
BOB’s rollup solution is designed to be secured by Bitcoin while being integrated into the Bitcoin stack through lightweight clients. Simultaneously, it also functions as a rollup on Ethereum to facilitate ease of use for those within the Ethereum community. “A quantity of population are impaired to bridging over from Ethereum to platforms like Arbitrum, Bays, or Optimism,” Dom stated. This familiarity makes BOB an attractive platform for users and developers from the Ethereum space, allowing them to leverage their existing knowledge and tools seamlessly.
Currently built on the OP Stack, the focus of the team so far has been to make the user and developer experience as native as possible to Ethereum to reduce friction for new participants. Dom also clarified that no trust-minimized bridges are currently available to move Bitcoin to the platform.
The BOB Roadmap
BOB intends to roll out its protocol in a series of strategic phases designed to incrementally enhance the platform’s capabilities:
Phase One: Bootstrapping
Launched on May 1st, this initial phase focuses on establishing BOB as an optimistic Ethereum roll-up using the OP stack, without Bitcoin security features integrated yet.
Phase Two: Integrating Bitcoin Proof of Work Security
The next step involves transitioning BOB to include Bitcoin’s proof of work security using Optimine, a merge mining protocol designed to harden the system’s security.
Phase Three: Transition to Bitcoin Rollup
This phase aims to shift the platform from an Ethereum-based to a Bitcoin-based roll-up, contingent on the progress of new technologies such as BitVM and other fraud-proof schemes.
Phase Four: Implementation of Zero-Knowledge Proofs
The final phase anticipates integrating zero-knowledge proofs, pending Bitcoin’s potential adoption of the technology. This would significantly enhance privacy and transaction efficiency.
Developing OptiMine
The team’s current focus is to introduce “With a bit of luck Sequenced Merged Mining”, a new technique that begins the process of integrating Bitcoin’s security into BOB. Dom explains, “OptiMine extends conventional merged mining by way of setting apart prevent manufacturing from proof-of-work finalization.” He argues this will likely permit the protocol to reach fast transaction processing life making sure the integrity related generally with Bitcoin.
How OptiMine Complements Safety and Potency
- Constructive prevent manufacturing: Blocks are produced with a bit of luck each and every two seconds by way of sequencers, making sure the top throughput that builders from the Ethereum range are familiar with. OptiMine improves transaction finality speeds, which is an important for person revel in. “Compared to traditional merged mining methods, OptiMine allows for quicker finality, enhancing overall system efficiency,” Dom provides.
- Bitcoin-secured finalization: In OptiMine, Bitcoin miners validate the blocks produced by way of sequencers by way of embedding a reference hash of the BOB blocks inside Bitcoin blocks, which can be upcoming added to the Bitcoin blockchain. This validation considerably reduces the hurt that comes from depending on centralized sequencers.
- Re-org resistance: By means of setting apart prevent manufacturing from proof-of-work, Optimine avoids the danger of a miner attacking the chain to rewrite its historical past.
- Merged Mining Potency: OptiMine makes use of Bitcoin’s current mining infrastructure to hold BOB’s rollups with out backup power prices.
With the creation of OptiMine and the strategic rollout of its building stages, BOB’s undertaking is to unite two ecosystems to assemble a flexible platform that leverages the strengths of each other.
“We want to essentially be the platform in between Bitcoin and Ethereum. And if you have assets from Ethereum, they should have Ethereum security. If you bring in assets from Bitcoin, they should have Bitcoin security and you should be able to use both on Bob.”
Conserve an ocular at the Bitcoin & Past order for extra insights and updates on BOB and alternative cutting edge tasks shaping the presen of the Bitcoin ecosystem.
It is a visitor put up by way of The Rollup. Critiques expressed are solely their very own and don’t essentially mirror the ones of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Book.
