Hey everyone!

Thanks for checking out the first edition of the newsletter! This was an idea I had while on sabbatical, but there just wasn’t enough information out around zk-rollups on Bitcoin at that point. I was really inspired by Lightcoin’s research on the subject, and am specifically interested in a Zcash-style rollup on Bitcoin (I contributed to Zcash).

Yesterday, Kasar Labs announced a partnership with Taproot Wizards, and adding that with previous momentum from Chainway, Rollkit and Sovereign Labs, I thought it’d be a good time to kick this off.

The format is pretty simple, and just an exercise for me to stay on top of all the news. Hope you find it valuable.

I’ll also include developments around other Bitcoin scaling solutions, like Drivechains.

Let’s dive in!

Development & Research Updates

• Kasar partners with Taproot Wizards to build Bitcoin zk-rollup experiments on Starknet

• Source code around Kasara’s Starknet Bitcoin experiment will be open-sourced in the coming days

• Chainway open-sources their Bitcoin Data Availability Adapter

• Hiro wallet is now known as Leather

• Stroom Network raises seed round to bring liquid staking to the Lightning network

• Luke Dash writes PR to merge BIP 300

Older pieces on Bitcoin rollups, but still bangers

• Sreeram Kannan addresses security properties about sovereign rollups on Bitcoin

• Rollkit releases a demo showing you can build sovereign rollups on Bitcoin

• Thread about running sovereign rollups on Bitcoin using Ordinal inscriptions

• Why a Bitcoiner loves a rollup - Eric Wall at Starkware Sessions

• The bull case for zkBTC - Lightcoin on Bankless

Media & Events

• Decrypt article on “What's a Bitcoin Drivechain and Why Are Devs At Odds Over Its Proposal?” (recommended by Paul Sztorc)

• Seth for Privacy speaking on Bitcoin scaling solutions, including trustless zk-rollups at Hackers Congress

• What Bitcoin Did will be hosting a debate on Drivechain

• Article explaining potential downsides of Drivechain

• Layer 2 Labs hosts a weekly Twitter/X spaces

• Taproot Wizards speak at the Starknet Summit

Some Bitcoin Scaling Tweets

• Thoughts on time it will take to implement Drivechain and validity rollups, while federated sidechains exist today

• David Bailey says miners are reaching out about BIP300

• BIP300 would improvie Bitcoin builder culture indefinitely

• Great thread from Lightcoin refuting the “shitcoins on Bitcoin” argument against Drivechains because you can already do it

• Greg Maxwell talking about zk-rollups on Bitcoin back in 2013

• An argument for why Drivechains have a better chance of implementation than validity rollups

• Quick thread on rollups helping enable Lightning swaps

• A little Drivechain history from Eric Wall

• The world after Drivechain merged with Bitcoin

• Increasing Bitcoin’s network effect is the best thing we can do to replace fiat currencies

• Why Drivechain is good for Bitcoin

• The Drivechain debate has reached Cashu

• With Drivechain, the lightning network might have the perfect layer beneath it

Learn about Bitcoin rollups and Drivechain

• Validity rollups on Bitcoin research report

• Bitcoin zk-rollups by Trey Del Bonis

• What Are Rollups and How Can They Work on Bitcoin? - Trust Machines

• Drivechain main website

• What is data availability? - Celestia

Thanks for reading! If you think this post has missed anything, please comment on this document.

And, if you want to try out lightning for the first time, collect this post as an NFT, shoot me a message, and I’ll send you some sats that you can use to make a donation to an open-source project. This week, I want to highlight hack.bs, a Bitcoin hackerspace based in Brescia, Italy.

PS. Yes, I know the graphic sucks.