Ethereum layer 2 Starknet is laying the groundwork to choose Bitcoin and Ethereum to unify the 2 largest blockchains on a single layer.
The Starknet Basis mentioned in its March 11 Bitcoin roadmap that it’s aiming for Starknet to develop into Bitcoin’s execution layer, scaling it from 13 transactions per second to hundreds, decreasing blocks and fuel charges, and creating a greater person expertise.
“Most Bitcoin at the moment sits static in wallets and exchanges, constrained by the restrictions of the community’s authentic design: a scarcity of scalability and an incapability to natively assist functions past easy shopping for, promoting, and transferring,” the inspiration mentioned.
It added that whereas some traders view Bitcoin as “digital gold,” it believes “there’s a demand for using Bitcoin for functions past that.”
Supply: Starknet
Beforehand, StarkWare CEO Eli Ben Sasson, the corporate behind the STARK proof that contributes to the event of Starknet, mentioned OP_CAT, a Satoshi-era opcode for unlocking programmability on Bitcoin that was disabled over safety considerations, would enable Starknet to choose the Bitcoin blockchain.
If profitable, Starknet mentioned the transfer would enable builders to construct functions on the Bitcoin community by good contracts and allow functions comparable to staking, borrowing, lending, leveraged buying and selling, and yield farming.
As a part of the announcement, StarkWare mentioned it has joined the rising variety of companies in making a Bitcoin (BTC) reserve, holding a rising portion of its treasury in crypto.
Supply: Ameen Soleimani
Starknet can even group up with Bitcoin Web3 pockets Xverse, whose founder and CEO Ken Liao mentioned the combination, slated for the second quarter of 2025, will obtain Bitcoin’s “DeFi take-off second.”
Xverse mentioned wallets should be extra than simply storage options; and permit easy accessibility to Bitcoin’s rising utility. Liao mentioned in an announcement that the endgame is trustless DeFi on Bitcoin.
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“In at the moment’s atmosphere, there’s a temptation for pockets groups to say, ‘yeah, let’s simply deal with making it simpler for folks to make use of Bitcoin as a retailer of worth,’” Liao mentioned.
“However the long-term way forward for Bitcoin additionally contains utility, and that’s why layer 2 options should attain the general public through the wallets they really use,” he added.
In the meantime, in a March 11 X area discussing Starknet’s plan, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin mentioned a correct Bitcoin L2 that may fulfill the wanted safety properties would “make crypto funds nice once more, and all these use instances can work.”
Starknet on Bitcoin and Ethereum https://t.co/tCyQDHY7Yr
— StarkWare 🐺🐱 (@StarkWareLtd) March 11, 2025
Buterin mentioned there’s a “lot of worth” in enabling the trustless movement of belongings between the Bitcoin and Ethereum ecosystems, comparable to simpler paths for decentralized change.
“In the event you return to the white paper, Bitcoin was meant to be a peer-to-peer digital money system, and clearly, layer 1 shouldn’t be practically scalable sufficient for that,” Buterin mentioned.
“I believe we’ve additionally seen a number of the limits of the Lightning Community and that form of strategy.“
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