The Bitcoin community’s proof-of-work consensus mechanism might change into a helpful technique of securing quite a lot of proof-of-stake (PoS) good contract blockchain protocols, due to efforts from a Stanford College professor.
David Tse and his analysis staff are driving using the preeminent cryptocurrency to supply added safety to PoS networks. Tse’s proprietary Babylon blockchain goals to make use of Bitcoin (BTC) to bolster community safety and incentivize BTC holders to take part in what’s ostensibly a brand new method permitting the staking of Bitcoin on proof-of-stake chains.
In an interview with Cointelegraph, Tse outlined how Babylon makes use of the Bitcoin scripting language to attach a PoS-based slashing mechanism to the Bitcoin community. This enables for the creation of good contracts that may set particular spending situations:
“Though the Bitcoin scripting language is proscribed in its means to specific advanced spending situations, we have now used superior cryptography to translate the slashing situations of a PoS chain right into a spendable transaction on the Bitcoin blockchain.”
Tse mentioned that Babylon’s BTC staking protocol allows BTC to safe its community with out altering or forking the Bitcoin blockchain. This additionally permits BTC holders to earn rewards for contributing to the safety of PoS networks by staking their BTC.
“Our technique basically transforms the slashing situation of a proof-of-stake chain right into a spendable Bitcoin transaction. This fashion, the staked BTC doesn’t should be bridged to the PoS chain in any respect.”
The Stanford professor added that the simplicity of the method additionally maximizes the safety of blockchains by avoiding potential vulnerabilities related to cross-chain bridges. As Cointelegraph extensively reported, cross-chain hacks and exploits have been rife, resulting in over $2 billion in crypto being stolen prior to now 12 months.
Bitcoin stays unmatched as the most important cryptocurrency by market capitalization and continues to function on the unique specs set out by its pseudonymous creator Satoshi Nakamoto.
Nonetheless, the ecosystem has seen renewed curiosity and development with the inception of Bitcoin Ordinals, which permit customers to inscribe nonfungible tokens onto particular person satoshis, the smallest denomination of a unit of BTC.
Equally, Tse believes that protocols like Babylon broaden the utility of Bitcoin past being a easy retailer of worth or medium of alternate by sharing Bitcoin’s sturdy safety with different chains and functions:
“We goal to scale Bitcoin’s safety in a method just like Ethereum’s scaling efforts, successfully sharing Bitcoin’s sturdy safety with the remainder of the decentralized world.”
The broader cryptocurrency ecosystem continues to develop novel approaches to blockchain consensus. Proof-of-stake chains have benefitted and are shortly adopting new approaches like zero-knowledge proofs (ZK-proofs). StarkWare co-founder Eli Ben-Sasson, who pioneered the expertise, additionally believes that ZK-proofs might drastically profit the proof-of-work-based Bitcoin blockchain.
Journal: Right here’s how Ethereum’s ZK-rollups can change into interoperable
