Bitcoins <\/p>\n
Apr 23, 2025, 4:25\u202fp.m. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n A project aiming to expand Bitcoin’s utility is tackling the collateral requirements of bridging the blockchain to programmable layer 2s.<\/p>\n Rollup project Citrea deployed its Clementine Bridge on the Bitcoin testnet. The bridge uses the BitVM2 programming language to expand the provision for decentralized finance<\/a> (DeFi) on Bitcoin, by using it to verify layer 2s and sidechains that are fully programable in the way Bitcoin isn’t. <\/p>\n “A secure bridge between Bitcoin and a secondary layer has always been a bottleneck for using BTC in a programmable environment,” Citrea said on Monday<\/a>.<\/p>\n Clementine is designed to solve this by providing a trust-minimized way to bridge bitcoin (BTC<\/a>) for use in DeFi environments.<\/p>\n The BitVM family of computing paradigms, which could allow Ethereum-style smart contracts on Bitcoin<\/a>, often lies at the heart of attempts by developers to make the network more programmable and thus allow BTC to power DeFi activities.<\/p>\n However, BitVM is hampered by the requirement to deposit BTC as a security mechanism each time a computation is initiated.<\/p>\n “We reuse the operator’s collateral, allowing them to facilitate multiple peg-outs with a single collateral,” Citrea co-creator Ekrem Bal told CoinDesk in a Telegram message. <\/p>\n Peg-outs refer to the process of moving assets from a sidechain back to Bitcoin, triggering the release of the locked BTC collateral on the main chain.<\/p>\n Citrea deployed Clementine on the original BitVM design last September<\/a>. Citrea’s latest bridge uses BitVM2, an upgrade that boasts improvements such as allowing any participant to challenge suspicious transactions, not just a fixed set of operators.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n