Key Points
- Blockchain developer StarkWare plans to introduce a Bitcoin scaling solution.
- The company also announced a $1 million fund for Bitcoin researchers to contribute to its plans.
StarkWare, a blockchain development firm, has shared its intention to create a scaling solution for Bitcoin. This move marks a significant expansion for the company, which was valued at $8 billion during its last investment round. StarkWare is a key contributor to Ethereum Layer 2 Starknet.
Scaling Bitcoin and Ethereum
With the Bitcoin OP_CAT proposal currently under discussion, StarkWare believes it’s the right time to bring its zero-knowledge scaling technology to Bitcoin. The company’s CEO and co-founder, Eli Ben-Sasson, stated that Starknet would be the first network to settle on both Bitcoin and Ethereum, scaling Bitcoin to handle thousands of transactions per second. This is expected to occur within six months following the potential Bitcoin upgrade, OP_CAT.
The plan does not involve creating an extra chain. It uses the existing Starknet network with its current governance and tokenomics to support Bitcoin scaling without requiring a fork. The team clarified that each dApp could choose where it wants to settle, either on Bitcoin, Ethereum, or both.
Contributing to Bitcoin Scaling
StarkWare has also announced a $1 million application-based fund for Bitcoin researchers who are interested in contributing to its scaling plans. Applications are expected to open soon, with funds set aside for new discoveries that demonstrate risks associated with OP_CAT or provide open source and useful proofs of concept.
The team at StarkWare has been discussing Bitcoin scaling internally for quite some time. Ben-Sasson gave a talk on STARK scaling at a Bitcoin conference as early as 2013. The company stated that Bitcoin wasn’t ready for STARKs at the time, but Ethereum was, making it the obvious first chain to scale. However, research following Bitcoin’s Taproot upgrade in November 2021 has now primed Bitcoin for scaling.
Why OP_CAT?
Covenant proposals like OP_CAT are advanced scripting features that allow for specific conditions on how bitcoins can be spent in future transactions. They could enable use cases, including the creation of secure “vaults” that allow reversible transactions, automated recurring payments, time-locked transfers for scenarios like inheritance, and complex financial instruments such as escrows and bonds.
The proposal to reintroduce OP_CAT to Bitcoin via a backward-compatible soft fork seeks to simplify and expand Bitcoin’s functionalities. However, the implementation of OP_CAT remains uncertain without broad agreement and a clear demonstration of its safety and utility.
While some in the Bitcoin community are not in favor of OP_CAT due to potential unintended consequences, StarkWare is committed to publicly championing OP_CAT to demonstrate the potential it can unlock for Bitcoin and the blockchain community in general. The company stated it is already working on the solution so that if OP_CAT is approved, it has practical plans ready for deploying STARK scaling on Bitcoin.
StarkWare is already a major supporter of the Bitcoin network, backing Bitcoin projects such as ZeroSync, which is working on the integration of ZK proofs with Bitcoin to enhance scalability. The company also recently commissioned the “Validity Rollups on Bitcoin” report by Bitcoin researcher John Light, reassessing the potential for integrating validity rollups with Bitcoin.
The company’s CEO believes that scaling the Bitcoin chain will unleash the blockchain’s power to transform the world. He stated that scaling would make applications for anything and everything deployable over Bitcoin, something that is impossible today.
