squidfra #2 - bitcoin ---------- One of the major unlocks by @ikadotxyz is that a smart contract on @SuiNetwork can control native bitcoin with speed, scalability, decentralization, and zero-trust security. This is huge, and literally not possible anywhere else. However, ika is low-level infrastructure, and although the cryptography behind generating a bitcoin signature in a fast, scalable, decentralized, and zero-trust way is the most difficult challenge from a research perspective, there are many other challenges for devs who want to utilize bitcoin in their application. For example, how does a smart contract on Sui "know" what the state of bitcoin is? How can the signed transactions be submitted to bitcoin? How are bitcoin transactions constructed on Sui? How to use dwallets to optimize and reduce bitcoin gas fees and latency? What if I want a synthetic bitcoin to work out of the box with an existing protocol? And in the future, how can native bitcoin protocols on DeFi be seamlessly interoperable? It makes sense to build squidfra tackling these challenges and others, so devs can just focus on their use case. Of course, many other pieces of squidfra can be useful for bitcoin use cases, but bitcoin's rudimentary design, its significance, and the market demand for bitcoin solutions warrant an entire category of squidfra solutions focused solely on bitcoin. ---------- 1. Problem it solves For most people, bitcoin is crypto. As @RobertZarembaIT likes to say, it completely dominates the crypto mindshare. Bringing access control and programmability to bitcoin is one of crypto's holy grails, and there are many teams trying to do that. Very few are actually doing it with native bitcoin (most are issuing derivatives), and those who do have many issues (as I'll detail in section 3). Whether it's a light client (or full node...) that can be used to verify against the bitcoin state, a smart contract that can construct/deconstruct bitcoin transactions and run them against policies, a relayer system to broadcast signed transactions to bitcoin, an out-of-the-box bitcoin synthetic, or an interoperable standard for controlling native bitcoin - having robust bitcoin squidfra on Sui means that anyone who wants to build bitcoin into their use case has the best optionality to plug into different solutions and minimal heavy lifting to do themselves. ---------- 2. Use cases it enables the genericity and flexibility of ika basically makes any use case possible on bitcoin, but let's highlight some of the categories where the right squidfra can give Sui devs unfair advantages over other players in the space: i. Custody: Enabling decentralized custody with zero-trust security for the first time is a game changer. It solves one of the biggest problems for adoption, and being able to have robust bitcoin custody access control policies implemented on-chain without reducing security (like @Aeon_HQ and @COVAULTxyz are doing, for example) are a huge competitive advantage that Sui builders will have when tackling the bitcoin custody space. ii. Native bitcoin DeFi: Enforcing any logic directly on native bitcoin, where the user holds the user share, can be used to design new interoperable DeFi protocols that utilize native bitcoin for swaps or as collateral - without removing user ownership. A new design is required because it will rely on P2P transactions held in escrow by the protocol (future transactions), instead of the popular pool model. iii. Synthetic: Bitcoin synthetics are the easiest way to work out-of-the-box with existing protocols without designing new mechanics. Although they can't offer the full zero-trust advantage as protocols working with native bitcoin directly can, any bitcoin synthetic created on Sui using ika (like nbtc, for example) will be instantly more decentralized than any existing derivative. ---------- 3. Existing alternatives Most bitcoin solutions are based on derivatives - so receiving a native BTC deposit to a bitcoin address that is fully controlled by a completely centralized multisig or a fairly centralized and permissioned MPC network - and minting a wrapped token in exchange. This is true for practically every "xBTC" token - WBTC, CBBTC, TBTC, SBTC, LBTC (where it goes through Babylon, but same story), etc. This also applies to places where the multisig/MPC network is used to control native bitcoin directly without minting a derivative, because it has the exact same trust assumptions (user gives full control of bitcoin to a handful of trusted 3rd parties). Platforms that try to do things directly on bitcoin without taking custody away from the user are cool but scarce and very limited. They're limited because they're forced to use bitcoin script (like @lava_xyz) or exploit very specific cryptographic hacks (like @babylonlabs_io) and therefore can offer extremely limited and specific functionality, and scarce because they have a super complex and inefficient system, struggle with performance, and sometimes also include hidden risks. ---------- 4. Competitive advantage with ika Ika unlocks speed, scalability, decentralization, and zero-trust security in a way that is not possible anywhere else. But most of all, robust bitcoin squidfra can unlock unprecedented optionality, flexibility, and simplicity for devs. Whether a Sui dev focusing on a bitcoin use case wants to prioritize security, performance, abstracted user experience, or competitive value - they can pick and choose their model and have it all work out of the box. ---------- Superstar team @goNativeCC are leading the charge right now with creating bitcoin squidfra, they've already built the first SPV (simple payment verification - a bitcoin "light client") in move on Sui, implemented a testnet version of their synthetic bitcoin nbtc, and recently also won @kostascrypto's impossible challenge building the basis for a bitcoin full node on Sui. And while native are definitely establishing themselves as the bitcoin squidfra leaders, I expect a few more teams to operate in this space which is huge in terms of potential and can definitely support multiple teams. ---------- Tomorrow it's finally time to get into "accountfi" squidfra - allowing devs to fully leverage the unique zero-trust account transferability capabilities of dwallets.