gm everyone

We had some big news come out of Kasar Labs last week! The team open sourced their Bitcoin data availability adapter under the Apache 2.0 license. And, Bitcoin Magazine published an article highlight zk-rollups on Bitcoin. In related news, Botanix Labs introduced Botanix, a Proof-of-Stake sidechain that brings EVM programmability to Bitcoin.

Let’s dive in 👇

Kasar Labs open sources Bitcoin Data Availability adapter

Last week, Kasar Labs and Taproot Wizards announced a partnership to bring zk-rollup tech to Bitcoin. It was hinted by Udi Wertheimer that the team would be open-sourcing their work around their Bitcoin data availability adapter, and they did just that.

The software allows people to use Bitcoin as a data availability layer. It’s specifically designed for Madara, a sequencer built for the Starknet stack, but it can be incorporated into any sequencer written in rust. If you’re not familiar with what a sequencer is, I’ll include some educational links below.

This is a really important step towards bringing zk-rollups to Bitcoin, and super excited to watch Kasar’s journey to bringing this code into production.

Be sure to test it out. Reminder that the code is highly experimental!

ZK on BTC Twitter spaces held

In an episode of “The Ordinal Show”, Udi Wertheimer spoke about his time at SBC and zk-rollups on Bitcoin. At around the 1:07:00 mark, he explained:

• What a rollup is

• What a zk-rollup is

• What a zero-knowledge proofs are from a scaling and privacy perspective

Udi gave examples on how the tech is widely being used today, and why it shouldn’t be viewed as “moon math” in the Bitcoin space. Zcash and Ethereum both have been developing and leveraging zk-proofs for some time, and they shouldn’t no longer be viewed as tech that will “break” Bitcoin.

He also covered the need for a soft fork to enable trust-minimized bridging, Kasar Labs’ zk-rollup currently running on Bitcoin’s regtest network, and more!

Listen here.

Bitcoin Magazine publishes article highlighting ZK Rollups on Bitcoin

Yesterday, Bitcoin Magazine published a really comprehensive article around zk-rollups, and their potential benefits to Bitcoin. The article highlights some potential use cases, and also covers some points around zero-knowledge proofs, STARKs versus SNARKs (please note that all SNARKs don’t need trusted setup anymore 😇), and what changes Bitcoin would need to make to implement this.

Having “followed” the Bitcoin rollups discussion since the bitcoinrollups.org report release, this is really cool to see.

Learn about items related to Bitcoin rollups

Here are some educational pieces that are relevant to the materials above.

• The definitive guide to sequencing by James Prestwich

• An article on decentralizing sequencers by Alex Beckett

• Rollups aren’t real by Jon Charbonneau (great section on sequencer design + decentralization)

• An article on shared sequencing by Espresso Systems

• A blog on Halo2, a zk-SNARK that does not need a trusted set up by Electric Coin Co.

• A panel on Bitcoin rollups from Modular Summit

Something else I saw, that was really cool, was an announcement around a new Proof-of-Stake Bitcoin sidechain that’s EVM compatible. Basically, combining Ethereum’s programmability with Bitcoin’s decentralization and native asset.

Also, Taproot Wizards are saying we should keep an eye out for more developments around zk-rollups on Bitcoin. Be sure to give them a follow! Some other tweets:

• Everything you need to know about zk-rollups on Bitcoin

• Bitcoin rollups are for added functionality

• Great thread on Bitcoin’s ZKP history from Chainway

Thanks for reading 😊 If I messed anything up and/or missed anything major, please comment in this document.

See you guys next week.