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Self Proposed Open Task: Apply ZK to create a trust-minimized (1 of N) BTC bridge to Ethereum.
Executive Summary
Project Overview:
BitVM is an open source project started by a Swiss non-profit organization called ZeroSync. Pending further research and development, BitVM could potentially bridge BTC to other blockchain systems in a trust-minimized (1 of N) way. It relies heavily on recent advances in zk-SNARKs. It also invented an approach to create a global key-value store on Bitcoin using Lamport signatures.
We plan to help build an Ethereum integration to BitVM which would help bridge BTC over to Ethereum in a trust-minimized way. This is a more decentralized offering than existing solutions relying on multi-sigs. No relationship with ZeroSync or other contributors of BitVM should be presumed. This is intended as an independent effort to contribute to an open source non-profit project.
This project is in line with PSE’s goal of supporting new cryptographic primitives, with the potential of further strengthening Ethereum as a decentralized ecosystem.
Project Details
Motivation:
One main driver towards achieving the long-term visions of Ethereum is bridging over BTC in a trust-minimized way. This provides superiors user experience in terms of security, and upholds Ethereum’s culture of decentralization. To date, there has not been a trustless bridge between Ethereum and Bitcoin. The most widely used solution, wrapped BTC (wBTC), relies on a few centralized entities to custody bridging assets.
A trust-min bridge would be feasible with Bitcoin soft forks. However, the politics of consensus change makes it highly unpredictable. The next best thing is the BitVM protocol, which requires no soft fork to potentially create a trustless bridge. It is fully decentralized and has a 1-of-n security assumption where n could be large.
BitVM is complex and involves many modules. It is an open source project driven by a non-profit entity called ZeroSync, and it commits to not issuing any token or raising commercial funding. It is not created for Ethereum and cannot promise to build an Ethereum integration.
We propose to fill the gap by building the Ethereum integration on top of BitVM.
Scope of Work:
Open source Solidity code required to complete the Ethereum integration of BitVM. It interacts with a ZK prover system wrapped within an optimistic fraud proof setup. It includes code to execute bitcoin SPV proofs inside the EVM, release the BTC back to the depositor after satisfying certain conditions, and burn the wrapped version of BTC bridged onto Ethereum after it has been bridged out and certain conditions have been met.
In addition, we plan to recruit bridge operators through a fair ETH holder election to maximize prospects of decentralization.
Expected Outcomes:
The overall project is of high complexity and long duration. It will likely require 1 to 2 years of intensive research and development to finish. This grant will be the first step towards helping us achieve our goal. We will be seeking other grants throughout the duration of the project whenever needed. Specifically, we will not be able to finish the production version of the trustless bridge between Ethereum and Bitcoin with this grant alone.
The end product will be
Open source Solidity code that interacts with the BitVM’s core optimistic ZK prover system and that executes the peg-in, peg-out, and burn mechanism.
Operator election website that allows fair, open election of operators by ETH holders.
Qualifications
Skills Required:
Solidity
Rust
A deep understanding of zk-SNARK, optimistic fraud proofs, and bitVM.
Preferred Qualifications: Development experience with bridging bitcoin header and/or transaction data onto Ethereum.
Administrative Details
Estimated Project Duration: Hard to estimate because more research is needed. Optimisitcally, 1-2 years.
Project Complexity:
Hard.
To our knowledge, this will be the first trustless bridge between Ethereum and Bitcoin.
The BitVM2 protocol is under development and may evolve over time.
Grants received would be used to support development costs such as mini-code-grants, server costs, and deployment costs.
NOOMA-42
commented
4 months ago
Self Proposed Open Task: Apply ZK to create a trust-minimized (1 of N) BTC bridge to Ethereum.
Executive Summary
BitVM is an open source project started by a Swiss non-profit organization called ZeroSync. Pending further research and development, BitVM could potentially bridge BTC to other blockchain systems in a trust-minimized (1 of N) way. It relies heavily on recent advances in zk-SNARKs. It also invented an approach to create a global key-value store on Bitcoin using Lamport signatures.
We plan to help build an Ethereum integration to BitVM which would help bridge BTC over to Ethereum in a trust-minimized way. This is a more decentralized offering than existing solutions relying on multi-sigs. No relationship with ZeroSync or other contributors of BitVM should be presumed. This is intended as an independent effort to contribute to an open source non-profit project.
This project is in line with PSE’s goal of supporting new cryptographic primitives, with the potential of further strengthening Ethereum as a decentralized ecosystem.
Project Details
Motivation:
Scope of Work:
Expected Outcomes:
Qualifications
Skills Required:
Preferred Qualifications: Development experience with bridging bitcoin header and/or transaction data onto Ethereum.
Administrative Details
Estimated Project Duration: Hard to estimate because more research is needed. Optimisitcally, 1-2 years.
Project Complexity:
Grants received would be used to support development costs such as mini-code-grants, server costs, and deployment costs.
Additional Information