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Transforming Rootstock’s Accessibility & Utility: 2024 Recap

Published on: 23 December, 2024

2024 was a significant year for Rootstock’s evolution, bringing major integration and network upgrades and making Rootstock more accessible, while serving the goal of making Bitcoin work for everyone.

As the year comes to a close, it’s time to recap some of the milestones achieved in Rootstock’s roadmap and explore what’s coming in 2025!

Upgraded Rootstock Access

2024 laid the groundwork for making Rootstock work for everyone by introducing significant accessibility improvements, including:

Integrating Boltz for atomic BTC <> RBTC swaps

The Boltz’s integration with Rootstock brings significant speed benefits to BTC <> RBTC transactions; low-value transfers and fast settlement with instant transaction finality.

Moreover, Boltz’s integration brings atomic swaps to Rootstock, meaning that users can now swap BTC to RBTC and vice versa with just a little Bitcoin in hand, in a trust-minimized manner. 

Finally, with this integration, users can now access Rootstock without needing pre-existing RBTC, thanks to RIF Relay-sponsored transactions.

Launching the Fast Mode

Accessing RBTC natively is done through the PowPeg, where users lock their BTC on the Bitcoin blockchain and receive an equivalent amount of RBTC on the Rootstock chain. This process requires 100 Bitcoin block confirmations (~17 hours) and can be quite complex for Bitcoiners.

The core team integrated the Flyover protocol to improve the PowPeg app, introducing a trustless intermediary (liquidity provider) and significantly reducing the wait time. 

With this integration, namely Fast Mode, users can now transfer BTC to RBTC as close to native as possible, and as fast as 20 minutes instead of 17 hours.

Scaling Rootstock

Runes Toy Bridge

In July, RootstockLabs launched the first Runes Toy Bridge on Rootstock. The primary goal is to allow users to etch (and eventually mint) Runes on the Bitcoin network and create a 1:1 representation of these Runes as ERC1155 tokens (Non-fungible initially) on the Rootstock network, manage the runes in the Rootstock network, and then take it back to BTC.

FASTER Protocol

The completion of the initial research phase for the FASTER protocol design has set the stage for faster transaction confirmation. FASTER protocol is a hybrid consensus mechanism that introduces elements of Proof of Stake into Rootstock’s merged-mining consensus. RootstockLabs researchers presented the protocol at the Proof of Work Summit in Frankfurt. This critical innovation is key to improving block times and security, making it a promising solution for scalable blockchain applications like decentralized finance (DeFi) or gaming.

Pioneering the Bitcoin Virtual Machine space

Publishing the BitVMX whitepaper

In May 2024, RootstockLabs and Fairgate Labs launched an open-source project called BitVMX to explore a major advancement in blockchain computations. 

BitVMX is a new design for a virtual CPU created to verify arbitrary programs on the Bitcoin blockchain. It allows more complex computations to be verified on Bitcoin, enabling more diverse use cases and applications to be built on top of Bitcoin without major modifications to Bitcoin’s code. 

Successful SNARK proof verification with BitVMX

For the first time, the team from RootstockLabs and Fairgate Labs demonstrated the ability to verify a SNARK proof on Bitcoin mainnet using BitVMX. And unlike different proposals that require OP_CAT, this verification method does not require any change in the Bitcoin protocol.

This is an important milestone in the development of the BitVMX proving system as the team has been able to challenge and validate the execution of a SNARK verifier on-chain. 

This can be replicated with any program that can be compiled to the RISC-V architecture as BitVMX provides a general-purpose virtual CPU.

Core Releases

Last but not least, the core team released multiple Arrowhead RSKj versions to:

 

The community has also submitted a proposal called the Lovell Network Upgrade, focused on improving Rootstock’s security and compatibility with the Ethereum virtual machine. This proposal is still up for voting so take your shot and add your suggestions to the forum. 

The last stretch in Q4/24 and Q1/25

Core developers are getting ready for a final round of Rootstock innovation in Q4 2024 and a kick start of the new year with exciting improvements coming into fruition, including:

Union Bridge whitepaper

Earlier in September, developers from RootstockLabs and Fairgate Labs announced the Union Bridge project. 

The Union Bridge is designed to be a permissionless bridge between Bitcoin and Rootstock blockchains. It will use BitVMX’s dispute-resolution model, enabling BTC to move seamlessly between Bitcoin and Rootstock’s ecosystem. 

Coming up in Q4, the Rootstock community is looking forward to reading the full whitepaper explaining the concept, and exploring what can be done next!

Better security with Lovell Network upgrade

The Lovell network upgrade will deliver enhanced functionality and improved security features. This upgrade focuses on:

  1. Strengthening the PowPeg with enhanced security protocols
  2. Improving PowPeg’s events data 
  3. Enhancing compatibility with the Ethereum virtual machine

As these proposals evolve, community participation remains essential to shaping the future of the platform. 

Share your thoughts in the Rootstock Research Forum.

The SuperBridge

The upcoming Rootstock SuperBridge will redefine the RBTC and RIF bridging experience. With an emphasis on accessibility and user-friendliness, this innovation promises a seamless entry point to Rootstock for both beginners and seasoned blockchain users.

More and more things are happening in the next few months, and you can be the first to know about it.

Check out the updated Rootstock roadmap, and stay in the know.