How Bitcoin can help secure proof-of-stake blockchain protocols

The proof-of-work statement mechanics of Bitcoin (BTC) could go a utile means of securing a assortment of proof-of-stake (PoS) astute declaration blockchain protocols acknowledgment to efforts from a Stanford University professor.

David Tse and his probe squad are driving the usage of the preeminent cryptocurrency to supply added information to PoS networks. Tse’s proprietary Babylon blockchain aims to usage Bitcoin to bolster web information and incentivize BTC holders to enactment successful what is ostensibly a caller attack allowing staking of Bitcoin connected proof-of-stake chains.

In an interrogation with Cointelegraph, Tse outlined however Babylon uses the Bitcoin scripting connection to link a PoS-based slashing mechanics to the Bitcoin network. This allows for the instauration of astute contracts that are capable to acceptable circumstantial spending conditions:

“Although the Bitcoin scripting connection is constricted successful its quality to explicit analyzable spending conditions, we person utilized precocious cryptography to construe the slashing conditions of a PoS concatenation into a spendable transaction connected the Bitcoin blockchain.”

Tse said that Babylon’s BTC staking protocol enables BTC to beryllium utilized to unafraid its web without having to change oregon fork the Bitcoin protocol. This besides allows BTC holders the quality to gain rewards for contributing to the information of PoS network’s by staking their BTC.

“Our method fundamentally transforms the slashing information of a Proof-of-Stake concatenation into a spendable Bitcoin transaction. This mode the staked BTC does not request to beryllium bridged to the PoS concatenation astatine all.”

The Stanford prof besides added that the simplicity of the attack besides maximizes the information of blockchains by avoiding imaginable vulnerabilities associated with cross-chain bridges. As Cointelegraph has antecedently explored, cross-chain hacks and exploits person been rife, starring to over $2 cardinal being fleeced implicit the past year.

Bitcoin remains unrivaled arsenic the largest cryptocurrency by marketplace capitalization and continues to run connected the archetypal specifications acceptable retired by its pseudonymous creator Satoshi Nakamoto.

Nevertheless the ecosystem has seen renewed involvement and maturation with the inception of Bitcoin Ordinals, which let users to to inscribe nonfungible tokens (NFTs) onto idiosyncratic satoshis, the smallest denomination of a portion of BTC.

Similarly, Professor Tse believes that protocol’s similar Babylon grow the inferior of Bitcoin beyond being a elemental store of worth oregon mean of speech by sharing Bitcoin's robust information with different chains and applications:

“We purpose to standard Bitcoin's information successful a mode akin to Ethereum's scaling efforts, efficaciously sharing Bitcoin's robust information with the remainder of the decentralized world.”

Novel approaches to blockchain statement proceed to beryllium developed by the wider cryptocurrency ecosystem. Proof-of-stake chains person benefitted and are rapidly adopting caller approaches similar zero-knowledge proofs (zk-proofs). The likes of StarkWare co-founder Eli Ben-Sasson, who pioneered the technology, also believes that zk-proofs could beryllium of large payment to the proof-of-work based Bitcoin blockchain. 

Magazine: Here’s however Ethereum’s ZK-rollups tin go interoperable