Sebastian Sinclair

After a long hiatus, Bitcoin Core developer Luke Dashjr has submitted a rough draft for implementing drivechains, a complex but promising addition to the Bitcoin ecosystem.



Drivechains allow the creation of sidechains, which are linked to the main Bitcoin network but remain separate and can operate independently, with different rules and functionalities.


<div class="wp-block-image">
<figure class="alignright size-medium is-resized"><img decoding="async" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/luke-dashjr.jpeg?w=300&amp;h=300" alt="Luke Dashjr" class="wp-image-65719" width="200" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/luke-dashjr.jpeg?w=389 389w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/luke-dashjr.jpeg?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/luke-dashjr.jpeg?w=150 150w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/luke-dashjr.jpeg?w=257 257w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/luke-dashjr.jpeg?w=261 261w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/luke-dashjr.jpeg?w=219 219w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/luke-dashjr.jpeg?w=80 80w" sizes="(max-width: 389px) 100vw, 389px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Source: <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/lukedashjr/">LinkedIn</a></figcaption></figure></div>


The innovation could boost the adaptability of Bitcoin by providing room for experimentation without compromising the security and stability of the primary network, or so the thinking goes.



The draft proposal, consisting of 17 commits, focuses on reimplementing drivechains using a UTXO-like model, according to a post in the Bitcoin Core <a href="https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/pull/28311">repository</a> on GitHub on Tuesday.&nbsp;



Essentially, the main goal of the change is to create a new version of drivechains, with a design that&#8217;s modeled after the way Bitcoin tracks transactions and ownership.



The concept was first publicly introduced in 2014 in a paper titled &#8220;<a href="https://blockstream.com/sidechains.pdf">Enabling Blockchain Innovations with Pegged Sidechains</a>,&#8221; published by Adam Back, Matt Corallo, Dashjr and others.



The method would utilize existing database structures rather than creating a separate database for sidechains, aiming for a cleaner and more reviewable approach, Dashjr said.



However, the proposal has not been without criticism. Other contributors have already raised concerns, with one reviewer — “Russeree” — expressing doubts about the proposed consensus method, fearing potential errors or manipulation by miners.&nbsp;



The pull request also indicates some incomplete areas, and Dashjr acknowledges the proposal cannot be deployed in its current form. This leaves room for further development, refinement, and possibly a shift in approach based on community feedback, he said.



“Despite providing and continuing this implementation, I myself do not thereby endorse or otherwise comment on the proposal itself,” Dashjr said.



Eric Wall, a prominent venture capitalist, focusing on investments in crypto and blockchain-related projects, <a href="https://twitter.com/ercwl/status/1693811632109965371?s=20">called</a> it the “most interesting development in Bitcoin,” this year.



Dashjr’s draft is still in the early stages, with the developer inviting feedback from the community.



Dashjr does not possess commit access to the Bitcoin repository, meaning others who do will have to sign off on the changes, following Bitcoin Core’s development consensus process. But he stands as the contributor with the longest tenure, having more than 500 of his commits merged, Wall added.



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Bitcoin Core developer reignites sidechain debate in latest proposal

Sam Reynolds

<div id="highlights-block_618ed07be2e5e" class="highlights">
 <ul>
 <li>The first major upgrade to the Bitcoin network since 2017 occurs this weekend</li>
 <li>&#8220;Bitcoin Core is now officially out of beta! 🚀 &#8220;, wrote Bitcoin developer Matt Whitlock in a discussion of the new version 22.0</li>
 </ul>
 
</div>



The Bitcoin network is activating Taproot, one of its most significant updates since 2017, when Segregated Witness, also known as “SegWit,” was first integrated to address bitcoin’s scaling problem.



According to <a href="https://www.nicehash.com/countdown/btc-forking-2021-11-15-12-00" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">NiceHash’s countdown timer,</a> the move to Taproot is scheduled to take place early Sunday UTC. The upgrade seeks to address the bitcoin network’s 2021 problem, which is programmability.&nbsp;



With the Cambrian explosion-like growth of decentralized finance (DeFi) during the last year, where its total locked-in value rocketed to nearly $100 billion, bitcoin effectively sat on the sidelines. Sure, bitcoin can be used as collateral via an Ethereum wrapper, but the lack of Bitcoin’s programmability meant its reliance on these projects to access DeFi markets.&nbsp;



Tapscript, Taproot’s programming language, will attempt to solve this. While not as powerful as the programming languages available on the Ethereum Virtual Machine, it’s miles ahead of the primitive scripting language currently available to the Bitcoin network.



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">A Bitcoin Core milestone</h3>



The governance of Bitcoin Core — which, to avoid confusion, Blockworks refers to canonically as simply &#8216;Bitcoin&#8217; — is a slow and deliberative process. In fact, the Taproot upgrade marks a visible shift in Bitcoin history: its version number. Despite the original release of v0.1 having been <a href="https://satoshi.nakamotoinstitute.org/emails/cryptography/16/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">way back on January 8, 2009</a>, the intervening 12 years have seen the version number rise to just 0.21.1. At that rate, Bitcoin would not reach a 1.0 version until the late 2060s!



Instead, the project&#8217;s core contributors <a href="https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/pull/20223" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">reached a consensus</a> in late 2020 to call the version that activates Sunday <a href="https://bitcoin.org/en/releases/22.0/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">v22.0</a>. The rationale from the original proposer was simple. &#8220;Honestly I&#8217;m just tired of all of the people asking for &#8216;1.0&#8217; that maybe this&#8217;ll shut them up. Skip the whole 1.0 thing and go straight to version 22.0!&#8221; he wrote on October 22, 2020. 



After over a month of discussion, at a time when bitcoin was trading hands for around $18,500, developer Matt Whitlock chimed in with a comment that looks prescient in retrospect:



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">&#8220;I&#8217;m surprised nobody mentioned the obvious implication here:&nbsp;Bitcoin Core is now officially out of beta!&nbsp;🚀 &#8230; Advancing the version number to something greater than 1.0 sends the signal that the software is now ready for prime time.&#8221; </blockquote>



One small step, but a step that reflects the maturity of a network that now secures $1.2 trillion in BTC assets. 



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Learning from the past</h3>



Since 2017, the analytical toolkits available to track movement and flow of that BTC on the Bitcoin network has also dramatically increased in availability and granularity. Nansen, <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/andreessen-horowitz-leads-12m-funding-round-for-nansen/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">which closed a $12 million round</a> this summer, offers the ability for its users to seek actionable trading opportunities by monitoring fund flow from whale or institutional wallets.&nbsp;



Taproot aims to solve this problem through something called the Schnorr Signature algorithm.&nbsp;Schnorr Signatures allow for all digital signatures on a transaction to be combined into one, so a Lightning transaction would not appear to be much different from a regular one. This boosts privacy and allows tighter integration of Lightning into the Bitcoin network, which reduces transaction costs due to combining transactions.



Unlike the introduction of SegWit, which triggered considerable debate among the Bitcoin community and led to the creation of bitcoin cash, Taproot doesn’t seem to have much, if any, opposition. According to a mining pool tracker, <a href="https://taprootactivation.com/">Taproot-</a><a href="https://taprootactivation.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Activation</a>, nearly all mining pools have approved the upgrade.



Likewise, the price of bitcoin hasn’t moved much as the activation date got closer. It was trading at $64,200 with 8 hours to go before the upgrade, according to <a href="https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/bitcoin" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">CoinGecko</a>, up about 5% in the last 14 days.&nbsp;By contrast, during the SegWit upgrade, the price of bitcoin rallied in anticipation, and nearly doubled afterward.



Macauley Peterson contributed reporting for this story.



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