Blockstream Engineer: Bitcoin Set for Layer 2 Explosion
During her presentation on the “state of the chain” at Consensus 2023 conference, Lisa Neigut, a Lightning Protocol engineer for Blockstream, announced that the Bitcoin ecosystem is on the brink of a layer 2 “Cambrian explosion”.
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While some crypto developers have criticised Bitcoin for its slow pace of technological advancement, Neigut believes that the forthcoming increase in functionality from new features, such as covenants and script updates, will be the catalyst for a surge in layer 2 development.
Bitcoin smart contracts that put constraints on how BTC can be spent, known as covenants, are set to be expanded with the introduction of BIP 118 (SIGHASH_ANYPREVOUT). Additionally, Blockstream has proposed a new programming language called Simplicity for Bitcoin smart contracts. Neigut predicts that these new features will unlock a wave of new layer 2 developments, creating a flywheel effect that will spur further advancements in the Bitcoin ecosystem.
Neigut’s announcement comes amid a technical renaissance in Bitcoin development, which has already seen the introduction of Bitcoin non-fungible tokens (NFTs) via the Ordinals protocol. With over 3.3 million NFTs produced in less than five months, the Bitcoin network is already seeing significant innovation. However, Neigut believes that the real breakthroughs will occur once the necessary functionality is in place at the base layer.
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