Bitcoin sidechain RSK launched a brand new bridge protocol referred to as Powpeg, which is able to facilitate a trustless connection between Bitcoi
Bitcoin sidechain RSK launched a brand new bridge protocol referred to as Powpeg, which is able to facilitate a trustless connection between Bitcoin (BTC) and RSK’s wrapped model of it, referred to as RBTC.
The system marks the primary time {that a} Bitcoin sidechain includes a trustless peg the place the funds allotted to the chain are usually not managed by a bunch of well-defined entities, typically referred to as a federation.
Powpeg achieves this by combining the security measures of a {Hardware} Safety Module, or HSM, with RSK’s consensus layer primarily based on merge-mining with Bitcoin. Sergio Lerner, co-founder of RSK, defined the idea to Cointelegraph:
“Within the Powpeg not even nearly all of pegnatories, or Powpeg signatories, can signal a Bitcoin peg-out transaction with out an enormous quantity of chain work that may solely be supplied by nearly all of RSK miners.”
The mechanism comes as a part of RSK’s technique of “protection in-depth” to offer a number of layers of safety and defend the system from various kinds of assault.
Most notably, federated techniques the place concrete authorized entities have the ability and the accountability to keep up the bridge’s operation are “susceptible to authorities takeover,” stated Lerner. With Powpeg that’s now not an choice, because the “pegnatories” can not management the funds within the bridge multisig contract. Making a transaction to maneuver these funds away would require a majority of the RSK hash charge, which is itself greater than 50% of complete Bitcoin mining energy.
With the eventual introduction of Taproot, the system may be expanded to include an arbitrary variety of bridge maintainers, together with people. This is able to additional scale back weak point to makes an attempt at authorities takeover, Lerner famous. Selective censoring can also be unattainable as a result of all outgoing transactions are mechanically linked with one another, he defined.
As a part of the “protection in-depth” doctrine, Lerner alluded to additional peg mechanisms to enhance resilience. Some potential strategies embrace the introduction of further federations, vastly rising the variety of signers, and a failsafe multisig system that prompts if the Powpeg stops functioning.
The creation of a trustless bridging mechanism might enable Bitcoin holders to learn from RSK’s sensible contract platform. The challenge has been working to develop its DeFi ecosystem, which now options primary constructing blocks like a collateralized lending protocol and several other types of decentralized exchanges.