BitVM bridge successfully demonstrated for the first time on the Bitcoin Mainnet

Recently, an important technological breakthrough was achieved on the Bitcoin Mainnet. A certain team successfully demonstrated real-time use cases of two BitVM bridges, showcasing the full functionality and strong security of this technology. More importantly, this demonstration proved the effectiveness of collaborating with mining pools to handle non-standard transactions (NSTs), addressing a key challenge that the BitVM bridges have faced for a long time.

Previously, the team had demonstrated the potential of BitVM on a dedicated testnet. To prototype on the testnet, they had to modify the Bitcoin core client to accommodate NSTs, which are transactions that often exceed the 400KB limit allowed by Bitcoin's default mempool policy. Overcoming the NST issue on the mainnet is the final key step in product development.

Recently, the team announced partnerships with multiple mining pools dedicated to addressing the NST challenge. Excitingly, the APIs of these mining pools have successfully processed the first batch of real-time NSTs from the BitVM bridge in response to genuine user requests.

This demonstration showcases in detail two complete BitVM bridge use cases executed on the Bitcoin Mainnet. Notably, one of the cases involves handling two different NSTs: Assert transactions and Disprove transactions. This demonstration powerfully demonstrates the capabilities of the BitVM bridge and the success of collaboration with mining pools.

Mainnet Live Demonstration

Roles in the demonstration

To illustrate the working mechanism of the bridge, the Mainnet demonstration includes:

• A deposit user: Initiating the process by bridging BTC into Ethereum.
• Two Brokers:
  • Broker A (malicious): Attempting to steal funds through invalid withdrawal requests.
  • Broker B (Honest): Initiate a legitimate withdrawal process.

Preparation: Recharge and create bridge instance

1. The depositing user will deposit 0.0001 BTC into the BitVM smart contract.
2. Subsequently, the user recharged and minted 0.0001 Peg-BTC on the Ethereum network (YBTC).

Case 1: Honest Broker Successfully Withdraws

This scenario demonstrates an honest Broker successfully retrieving their BTC and collateral after destroying their Peg-BTC (YBTC) on Ethereum. This utilizes the flexible withdrawal feature of the BitVM bridge.

1. Broker B has destroyed its YBTC on the Ethereum.
2. Broker B initiated a withdrawal request by sending a Kickoff transaction on Bitcoin.
3. After the predefined timeout, Broker B successfully retrieved its Bitcoin and collateral through a HappyTake transaction.

This case verifies the optimistic withdrawal path of honest participants.

Case 2: Invalid withdrawal request rejected

This critical scenario demonstrates the robustness of the security model. A malicious Broker (Broker A) attempted to steal funds, but the fraud proof protocol involving NSTs successfully thwarted this attack.

1. Broker A initiated an invalid withdrawal request by sending a Kickoff transaction.
2. An honest observer detected fraudulent behavior and sent a Challenge transaction, forcing Broker A into the "pessimistic path" of the fraud proof protocol.
3. Broker A is forced to reveal all intermediate values of the validator data block. Due to the invalid withdrawal request, at least one data block's execution is incorrect. This step involves an Assert transaction, which is an NST successfully processed by the cooperative mining pool.
4. The observer ran all blocks offline and identified an incorrect one, then sent a Disprove transaction to replay the erroneous block on the chain. This ultimately invalidated the invalid withdrawal request. The Disprove transaction was also an NST and was successfully processed again on the Mainnet.

This case clearly demonstrates the ability of the BitVM bridge to penalize malicious actors and protect user funds, which is crucially supported by the Mainnet's handling of NSTs such as Assert transactions and Disprove transactions.

The successful live demonstration on the Bitcoin Mainnet is an important milestone. It validates the relevant technologies, the strong capabilities of collaborating with mining pools, and the potential to build a truly scalable, secure, and trustless Bitcoin infrastructure. This paves the way for a new generation of decentralized financial applications on Bitcoin.