The Bitcoin technology and protocol stack

07-03-2022

Bitcoin is is a new disruptive open-source monetary technology and protocol. The Bitcoin technology and protocol stack is quite vast, under development and evolving.

Bitcoin has more than 60+ "innovations", including upgrades, layer 2s/3s, smart contracts, dApps, apps, privacy tools, and much more.

Bitcoin sidechain technology

Sidechains A sidechain is a blockchain that runs parallel to the Bitcoin mainchain to provide functionalities & scalability Original whitepaper by Blockstream: https://blockstream.com/sidechains.pdf

Bitcoin PoS sidechains

Proof of Stake Sidechains PoS is criticized by Bitcoiners for having several issues that make it far inferior to PoW. But many of those issues are resolved if the PoS system is reliant on a PoW system like Bitcoin for its security. For more information: Proof of Stake Bitcoin Sidechains.

Elements, liquid and Bitcoin federated sidechains

Liquid is a federated sidechain for traders & exchanges that enables faster, more confidential #BTC and #USDT transactions, and the issuance of digital assets. Website: https://liquid.net . How it works: https://docs.blockstream.com/liquid/technical_overview.html

Elements is the name of the blockchain platform used by Liquid. It's built upon and extending Bitcoin’s codebase Website: https://elementsproject.org Features: - Confidential transactions - Issued assets - Schnorr signatures.

Simplicity Simplicity is a blockchain programming language designed as an alternative to the Bitcoin script for Elements/Liquid. The language and implementation are under development.

Blockstream satellites

Blockstream satellites The Blockstream satellites broadcast the Bitcoin blockchain around the world 24/7 for free, enabling nodes to be run even in places without the Internet.

Bitcoin MainStay

Bitcoin MainStay is another protocol that allows you to run sidechains that exploit the security and immutability of a proof-of-work public blockchain like Bitcoin. Website: https://commerceblock.com/mainstay/ Learn: https://commerceblock.readthedocs.io/en/latest/mainstay-background/index.html

Bitcoin RSK

Rootstock is a merge mined sidechain with a federated 2 way peg. Think of it as a clone of Ethereum that uses bitcoin (RBTC) as its currency. I won't touch RIF, although that's built top of RSK, and they're often associated with each other. Website: https://www.rsk.co/rsk-blockchain/

Bitcoin Sovryn

Sovryn is a non-custodial and permissionless, smart contract based decentralized app (dApp) created on RSK for lending, borrowing, and margin trading bitcoin.

BTCPayServer

This is an open-source, self-hosted payment processor for Bitcoin (with lightning) and other cryptocurrencies. Website etc can take payments with complete self-sovereignty.

Bitcoin Money on Chain

Money on Chain offers a fully bitcoin collateralized stablecoin (DoC), a token that enables hodlers to earn more sats on bitcoin (BPro), a 2x leverage token BTC2x, and a governance token (MoC). Website: https://moneyonchain.com Wiki: https://wiki.moneyonchain.com

Bitcoin Drivechains

Drivechain is a proposal for enabling the original vision of sidechains with trustless 2-way pegs. Drivechains make all altcoins obsolete in theory. Website https://drivechain.info

Bitcoin Hivemind

Hivemind is a Peer-to-Peer Oracle Protocol that absorbs accurate data into a blockchain so that Bitcoin users can speculate in on-chain Prediction Markets. Could be implemented as an alt coin, but is being designed as a sidechain https://bitcoinhivemind.com

Bitcoin Thunder

Thunder is a big block clone of Bitcoin, also proposed by Paul as a sidechain to provide scalability in exchange for less decentralization. Makes big blockers happy without fucking up the mainchain or forking away https://truthcoin.info/blog/thunder

Bitcoin Softchains

Softchains A decentralized two-way peg sidechain design, where each new chain is activated through a soft fork, but Bitcoin nodes only validate the disputed blocks. For more information: http://gist.github.com/RubenSomsen/7ecf7f13dc2496aa7eed8815a02f13d1…

Bitcoin Spacechains

Spacechains One way pagged trustless sidechain design that doesn't require forks in the Bitcoin mainchain Read: https://medium.com/@RubenSomsen/21-million-bitcoins-to-rule-all-sidechains-the-perpetual-one-way-peg-96cb2f8ac302…

Bitcoin Statechains

You lock up money between a "statechain entity" and an user in a 2-of-2 multisig. The user transfers the money (the entire UTXO) by simply handing over their private key to the intended recipient. Read: https://medium.com/@RubenSomsen/statechains-non-custodial-off-chain-bitcoin-transfer-1ae4845a4a39…

Mercury is an implementation of statechains. Note that statechain implementations like Mercury are non custodial but *not* trustless. Website: https://mercurywallet.com

Bitcoin Taproot

Taproot Taproot would expand on Bitcoin’s smart contract flexibility, while offering more privacy in doing so. Even the most complex smart contracts would typically look indistinguishable from regular transactions. Goes live in a few days. Read for more information: Taproot Is Coming: What It Is, and How It Will Benefit Bitcoin.

Bitcoin Discreet Log Contracts

Discreet Log Contracts DLCs are invisible smart contracts on the Bitcoin blockchain that look like ordinary multi signature outputs. Website: https://dci.mit.edu/smart-contracts Read: https://medium.com/@gertjaap/discreet-log-contracts-invisible-smart-contracts-on-the-bitcoin-blockchain-cc8afbdbf0db…

Bitcoin RGB Smart Contracts

RGB smart contracts RGB is a suite of protocols that use a completely different paradigm for scalable & confidential smart contracts on top of Bitcoin *and* lightning Website: https://rgb-org.github.io

Bitcoin Sapio

Bitcoin Sapio is an in-development programming language that empowers Bitcoin developers to craft smart contracts in a more intuitive, safe, and composable way, compared to Bitcoin's native "Script". Website: https://github.com/sapio-lang/sapio… Learn Sapio: https://learn.sapio-lang.org/ch00-00-introduction.html

Bitcoin Covenants

Covenants aka spending constraints are hypothetical bitcoin scripts that, when attached to UTXOs, would constrain the way these can be spent, for example restricting the addresses where such coins can be sent. Learn more: https://bitcoincovenants.com

Bitcoin OP_CHECKTEMPLATEVERIFY

OP_CHECKTEMPLATEVERIFY It's an opcode based covenant, that has several potential use cases, including in drivechains. Website: https://utxos.org Use cases: https://utxos.org/uses/

Bitcoin Revault

Revault A free, open source custody solution for institutions holding bitcoin. Website: https://revault.dev

Bitcoin MiniMint

MiniMint "Bitcoin banks". Aims to replace Bitcoin's custodial solutions controlled by single parties with federated solutions controlled by multiple parties. Github: https://github.com/fedimint/minimint…

Bitcoin Fabric

Bitcoin Fabric is a new peer-to-peer computation protocol that enables a new model for a distributed web: data in exchange for value. Website: https://fabric.pub Whitepaper: https://github.com/FabricLabs/whitepaper/blob/master/whitepaper.md…

Bitcoin ION

ION Decentralized Identifier ION is an open, public, permissionless layer 2 decentralized identifier network that runs atop the Bitcoin blockchain. Highly scalable unlike anything "Web 3.0" on Ethereum. Website: https://identity.foundation/ion/

Bitcoin Bisq

Bisq Bisq is a peer-to-peer network made of open-source software nodes to buy and sell bitcoin for fiat (or other cryptocurrencies) privately and securely. Website: https://bisq.network Wiki: https://bisq.wiki

Bitcoin Erlay

Erlay It's a new Bitcoin transaction relay protocol that helps reduce bandwidth requirements of running a full node. Watch: https://youtube.com/watch?v=Gq6vRnJnbBM…

Bitcoin uTreeXO

uTreeXO uTreeXO reduces the amount of data sent from node to node through the use of cryptographic proofs, you could, in theory, run a full node on a smartphone, with 500 MB of RAM using uTreeXO.

Bitcoin FIBRE

The Fast Internet Bitcoin Relay Engine (FIBRE) FIBRE is a protocol and implementation designed to relay blocks within a network of nodes with almost no delay beyond the speed of light through fiber. https://bitcoinfibre.org

Bitcoin Stratum

Stratum V2 is a protocol for pooled mining. It focuses on making data transfers more efficient, reducing physical infrastructure requirements for mining operations, and increasing security.

Bitcoin PowSwap

POWSWAP allows miners to insure against unforeseen changes in difficulty, HODLers to insure their Bitcoin against decreases in difficulty & earn interest on long term holdings, & market makers to earn profit by providing liquidity. Website: https://powswap.com

Bitcoin Data anchoring

Data anchoring Bitcoin's blockchain can be used for more than just transferring BTC. It can also be used to create an immutable timestamped record of small amounts of data, which enables other protocols to use its security properties.

Here are some data anchoring platforms/services: Block Co (blockchain certificates) https://block.co Blockcerts (blockchain credentials) https://blockcerts.org Keybase (secure filesystem) https://book.keybase.io/docs/files

Bitcoin CoinJoin

CoinJoin is a trustless method for combining multiple Bitcoin payments from multiple parties into a single transaction to improve privacy on the base layer Read: https://blog.wasabiwallet.io/what-is-a-coinjoin/… Wasabi Wallet with CoinJoin: https://docs.wasabiwallet.io

PayJoin (P2EP) It is a special type of CoinJoin done between two parties that makes it hard to determine for external observers who paid how much to whom. Read (wiki): https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/PayJoin

Bitcoin CoinSwap

CoinSwap Using smart contracts on the blockchain, coins are (atomic) swapped between users. For example: Alice's Address ---> 2of2 multisig escrow address 1 ---> Bob's Address Bob's Address ---> 2of2 multisig escrow address 2 ---> Alice's Address https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/CoinSwap

Bitcoin Dandelion++

The Dandelion++ is a network layer anonymity solution that helps improve Bitcoin’s P2P network privacy. It uses privacy techniques to hide the origin (IP address) of on-chain transactions.

Bitcoin Lightning

LNP/BP Standards Association It is an organization that oversees the development of LNP/BP specifications that cover standards & best practices for Layer 2s & above in cases when they do not require soft/hard-forks on the base layer (cont.).

Products being developed by the Association: https://lnp-bp.org/products

Lighting hosted channels Hosted channels (HC) is an extension to LN protocol which allows two LN nodes to establish a new type of channel between them which is intentionally not backed on chain.

Bitcoin Stacks

Stacks is an open-source network of decentralized apps and smart contracts built on Bitcoin. Stacks unleashes Bitcoin’s full potential as a programmable base layer. For more information: https://www.stacks.co/

Bitcoin Synomym

Synonym has designed a strategy and model for facilitating and accelerating a Bitcoin future by researching, developing, and bootstrapping a full ecosystem of the software products and protocols necessary to operate in a post-hyperbitcoinization environment. Synomym is building out a lightweight, scalable, and decentralized "web of trust" protocol, Slashtags, which brings new utility and self-sovereign experiences to Bitcoin and the Lightning Network.

For more information: https://synonym.to

Bitcoin BOLT12

BOLT12 is a new set of specifications for the lightning network (wallets and nodes). It allows for things like static, re-usable invoices and recurring payments over lightning. Podcast: https://youtube.com/watch?v=LSP0p_IPUIM…

Bitcoin Channel factories

Channel factories are a proposed intermediate layer between Bitcoin and lightning that are designed to reduce the number of on-chain transactions required for opening and closing LN channels.

LNURL-auth

LNURL-auth is a protocol for authenticating users using digital signatures from public-private key pairs held in their lightning wallet. Demo: https://lightninglogin.live Learn: https://lightninglogin.live/learn

LNURL Point of Sale DIY lightning point of sale payments processor. Uses a online solution as its backbone, but the POS itself is completely offline Read: https://github.com/arcbtc/LNURLPoS

Bitcoin ImperviousAI

It is a programmatic layer on top of lightning making it the application layer (layer 3) of Bitcoin. Website: https://impervious.ai Impervious browser: https://twitter.com/ImperviousAi/status/1450966667123519488…

Lapps (Lightning Apps)

Sources: Twitter & Lopp