Crypto News – Citrea Launches BitVM Bridge on Bitcoin Testnet to Enable Smart Contracts

Crypto News – Citrea Deploys Zero-Knowledge Rollup on Bitcoin with BitVM Integration

Crypto News – Bitcoin zero-knowledge rollup Citrea has deployed its BitVM-based bridge Clementine on the Bitcoin testnet. This marks a significant step towards enabling Ethereum-style smart contracts on the Bitcoin blockchain, leveraging the power of zero-knowledge computations. The launch also highlights Citrea’s ambition to position Bitcoin as a central layer for global finance.

Citrea’s $2.7 Million Seed Funding and Vision for Bitcoin

Earlier this year in February, Citrea secured $2.7 million in seed funding led by Galaxy, showcasing the project’s potential to reshape Bitcoin’s role in the financial ecosystem. Citrea aims to use Bitcoin as a settlement layer, a move that could make Bitcoin the backbone of global financial systems. In an announcement, Citrea expressed their goal of making Bitcoin “the foundation for the world’s finance.”

Clementine: A Trust-Minimized Two-Way Peg Program

In March, Citrea detailed the launch of Clementine in a blog post. Clementine is designed as a trust-minimized two-way peg program, enabling users to lock up their Bitcoin on the main chain and mint an equivalent Bitcoin token on Citrea. When users want to reverse the process, the minted token is burned, and the original Bitcoin is then released back onto the Bitcoin blockchain. This innovative approach allows Bitcoin to be utilized in more flexible financial applications without compromising the security of the main chain.

BitVM: A Paradigm Shift for Bitcoin Smart Contracts

Clementine leverages BitVM, a new computing paradigm introduced last year by Bitcoin developer Robin Linus. BitVM is designed to facilitate Ethereum-style smart contracts on Bitcoin, a feature that has long been absent from the Bitcoin ecosystem. BitVM’s potential doesn’t end there—it could also open the door for zero-knowledge computations on the Bitcoin network, offering a wide array of future possibilities for privacy and scalability.

Citrea and Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) Compatibility

A key feature of Citrea is its compatibility with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM). This makes it possible for Ethereum-based decentralized applications (dApps) to be deployed directly on Citrea without needing significant modifications. According to Orkun Mahir Kılıç, CEO of Citrea’s parent company, Chainway Labs, “Citrea is an EVM-compatible layer, meaning all the applications on Ethereum can simply deploy on Citrea without having to change anything.”

BitVM’s Role in Mitigating Bitcoin Network Congestion

BitVM plays a crucial role in reducing congestion on the Bitcoin network by enabling rollups to settle transactions away from the main blockchain. This solution not only reduces congestion but also lowers transaction fees, making it a promising development for Bitcoin scalability. According to a white paper published by Robin Linus and his co-authors, BitVM achieves this by compressing programs into sub-programs that can be executed within Bitcoin transactions through cryptographic methods.

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