- According to Eli Ben-Sasson, the world’s most popular cryptocurrency, Bitcoin could completely realize Satoshi Nakamoto’s ambition through a future soft fork.
The Israeli startup StarkWare, which created the well-known Ethereum layer-2 network StarkNet and the scaling engine StarkEx, has also revealed plans to use zero-knowledge rollups to significantly expand the possibilities of Bitcoin.
The business pledged to realize this goal on Tuesday by announcing a $1 million research and development fund.
Today’s Bitcoin is powerful, but it’s still only a small portion of what it can be. StarkWare CEO and co-founder Eli Ben-Sasson stated in a prepared statement that he wanted to see the complete project. Scaling Bitcoin will enable blockchain technology to completely change the world.
StarkNet, which has already been proven as a permissionless, decentralized rollup for Ethereum, will serve as the cornerstone of the answer for scaling Bitcoin and Ethereum.
Rollups combine tens of thousands of transactions off-chain, verifying them at a far lower cost on-chain.
The restoration of the Bitcoin blockchain command OP_CAT, which would enable programmers to establish parameters for when Bitcoin can be spent, is essential to the project’s future development.
This could result in solutions for reversible transactions, automated payments, and other features that are offered by smart contracts on other blockchains.
We back OP_CAT because we think Bitcoin should be used more widely and because we think the soft fork is the safest way for Bitcoin to grow, as it will enable rollups and STARK, among other features, according to Ben-Sasson.
With that capacity in place, he claims the most well-known blockchain in the world can have the same mass scalability as Ethereum while maintaining the essence of its anonymous founder, Satoshi Nakamoto.
Ben-Sasson stated, “Everything Satoshi envisioned, including the low-cost everyday micro-payments discussed in the Bitcoin White Paper, can be delivered by the STARK cryptography we are proposing.” Cryptography that preserves all of Satoshi’s ideals—trustlesness, decentralization, and more—is the only method to achieve this in a way that is faithful to his original vision.
After pledging to release its technology under an open-source license, StarkNet, which has a $8 billion valuation from its most recent investment round, said that it had started testing zero-knowledge proofs on Bitcoin in March of last year.
Despite having previously concentrated on Ethereum, Ben-Sasson claims that StarkWare is not chain agnostic.
According to Ben-Sasson, StarkWare is frequently misunderstood as an Ethereum maxi, while in reality, we are scaling maxis.
StarkWare mentions that prior to starting StarkWare or even the word STARK, which stands for Scalable Transparent ARgument of Knowledge, Ben-Sasson presented what is known as “STARK scaling” at a Bitcoin conference in 2013.
The company stated at the time that Ethereum could support STARKs whereas Bitcoin could not. Bitcoin is now ready for scaling thanks to the OP_CAT proposal and the Bitcoin Taproot update in 2021.
According to Ben-Sasson, applications for everything and anything will be deployable over Bitcoin, something that is not currently feasible.
StarkWare states that, in addition to supporting the OP_CAT proposal and providing a $1 million grant fund, it will create “ready-to-roll practical plans for deploying STARK scaling on Bitcoin” based on the proven effectiveness of its Ethereum implementation. A public repository showcasing the potential applications of OP_CAT-based programming will also be available.
According to Ben-Sasson, cryptocurrency is “a source of good,” and StarkNet can provide significantly more bandwidth than is required to reach and assist everyone by dedicating to Bitcoin scaling.
Ben-Sasson stated in the announcement on Tuesday, “I left academia because I’m convinced that crypto can clean up the digital world and finance.” It can restore integrity to money and reestablish power balances in our society by reclaiming power from big tech and giving it back to independent citizens.
He went on, “In my opinion, no such vision is complete without scaling the chain that initiated this great project.” Scaling Bitcoin will enable blockchain technology to completely change the world.
Disclaimer : This article was created for informational purposes only and should not be taken as investment advice. An asset’s past performance does not predict its future returns. Before making an investment, please conduct your own research, as digital assets like cryptocurrencies are highly risky and volatile financial instruments.
