Bitcoin Rollup Citrea deploys BitVM-based bridge ‘Clementine’ on Testnet

Zero-knowledge rollup Citrea has deployed its BitVM bridge on the Bitcoin testnet.

Clementine uses BitVM, a computing paradigm designed to enable Ethereum-style smart contracts on Bitcoin and which could also pave the way for zero-knowledge computation.

Bitcoin zero-knowledge rollup Citrea has deployed its BitVM-based bridge Clementine to the Bitcoin testnet.

Citrea, which raised $2.7 million in seed funding led by Galaxy in February, aims to use Bitcoin as a settlement layer to make it “the foundation for global finance,” according to an emailed announcement on Tuesday.

In a blog post in March, the Citrea team described Clementine as a “trust-minimized two-way peg program,” essentially a way to pin bitcoin on the main chain and then mint an equivalent bitcoin token for use on Citrea; to reverse the process, that token is burned and the bitcoin can then be included on the Bitcoin blockchain.

Clementine uses BitVM, a computing paradigm introduced last year by Bitcoin developer Robin Linus that was ultimately designed to enable Ethereum-style smart contracts on Bitcoin, and could also pave the way for zero-knowledge computation.

Citrea is compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), the smart contract execution software that powers the Ethereum protocol, similar to an operating system on a computer.

“Citrea is an EVM-compatible layer, which means that all applications on Ethereum can be easily deployed on Citrea without having to change anything,” Orkun Mahir Kılıç, CEO of Citrea builder Chainway Labs, told CoinDesk in an interview.

BitVM is a channel that can connect rollups to the Bitcoin network, allowing transactions to be handled outside the main blockchain to reduce congestion and fees. BitVM’s basic configuration involves using cryptography to compress programs into subprograms that can then be executed within Bitcoin transactions, according to a white paper published by Linus along with five co-authors.

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