December 24, 2024 | Read Online

Bitcoin's climb to $100k was a prime opportunity for industry leaders to wax historical, but in the background, breakthroughs like BitVM-based bridges are hinting at Bitcoin's next chapter.

The ghost of bitcoin's Christmas past:

Source: Blockworks Research

This long-term, log-scale chart highlights bitcoin's historic climb to $100k — a remarkable journey over the years.

In recent comments to Blockworks, Xapo Bank CEO Seamus Rocca reflected, "Bitcoin's meteoric rise isn't just a headline — it's a paradigm shift." Rocca emphasized breaking the psychological $100k barrier reinforced bitcoin's position as a global financial force.

Raj Brahmbhatt, CEO of Zeebu, noted, "This isn't just about a number; it's a validation of blockchain's potential to redefine financial systems."

Phillip Zentner of LI.FI commented on the broader implications, observing that the milestone demonstrated crypto's resilience amid regulatory shifts and increasing institutional participation.

Nic Puckrin of Coin Bureau remarked, "$100,000 seemed like such an impossibility...a far away number that we might never [have seen] during our lifetimes."

Now, where's that Santa rally?

BOB and Fiamma's BitVM-powered bridge

BOB ("Build on Bitcoin"), a hybrid layer-2 solution leveraging Bitcoin and Ethereum, has taken a significant step forward by successfully testing its first BitVM-powered Bitcoin bridge prototype. Developed in partnership with Fiamma, the prototype in production will deliver trust-minimized BTC bridging. Doing so marks a milestone in the chain's scaling — with bitcoin, the asset, at the center.

BitVM bridges stand out from existing solutions like wBTC or cbBTC — which rely on centralized entities — and from semi-trusted models. By contrast, BitVM leverages a fraud-proof system, where BTC deposits and withdrawals are secured so long as one participant acts honestly.

"Bitcoin security and trust-minimized BTC bridging are the two most important pillars of Bitcoin L2s," said Alexei Zamyatin, BOB co-founder and BitVM2 contributor.

The bridge prototype is expected to be deployed on BOB's testnet in early 2025, followed by a mainnet rollout after audits. Additionally, BOB announced plans to integrate with bitcoin staking service Babylon with an aim to establish itself as a Bitcoin-secured network with Bitcoin finality.

Signaling for Bitcoin scaling preferences

The open Wiki-style signaling forum on Bitcoin soft fork upgrades reflects the growing need for community consensus on covenants like OP_CAT and OP_CTV. Developers, including Zamyatin, have weighed in on proposals. For instance, Zamyatin has marked OP_CTV as "Weak," while signaling "Evaluating" for OP_CAT, thus indicating areas where more discussion is required.

The forum is valuable because it collects rationales in one place, moving discussions away from social media fights, according to Zamyatin.

"It makes it easier to evaluate proposals, summarize pros and cons, and have meaningful discussions," he told Blockworks.

The signaling process has revealed divided opinions: While OP_CTV has garnered moderate consensus, OP_CAT and others remain contentious. As Zamyatin noted, achieving broad agreement will only grow harder as Bitcoin adoption increases.

For BOB and the wider Bitcoin ecosystem, these upgrades could eventually enable more advanced capabilities, including native zk-verifiers — a vital step toward scaling Bitcoin securely.

— Macauley Peterson