Blockchain
An engineer at Bitcoin-focused development firm Blockstream has said she sees a “Cambrian explosion” coming for the development of layer 2 technologies on the Bitcoin network.
The rapid growth eyeing layer 2 technologies will be fueled in part by upcoming updates such as Bitcoin Improvement Proposal (BIP) 118, known as SIGHASH_ANYPREVOUT, or APO for short, as well as a new programming language for Bitcoin smart contracts called Simplicity, Blockstream engineer Lisa said. Neigut at the Consensus 2023 Conference.
“APO is hopefully going to unlock a Cambrian explosion with these script updates and new covenants,” said Neigut, expressing his optimism about the future for Bitcoin Layer 2 technologies:
“I think there’s going to be a lot of new layer 2 stuff in the future.”
The comments were made during Neigut’s State of the Chain presentation at the conference, held last week in Austin, Texas.
A mature Bitcoin Layer 2 ecosystem already exists
While less well known among DeFi users than Ethereum-based layer 2 networks, Bitcoin already has one of the most developed second layer ecosystems of any blockchain network.
Current Bitcoin-based layer 2 networks include the Lightning Network, which is widely used for payments, as well as Blockstream’s Liquid sidechain, and new technologies known as Fedimint and Cashu.
Blockstream is a Vancouver-based company working on infrastructure for the Bitcoin network.
The company is led by veteran cypherpunk Adam Back, who is known as the inventor of Hashcash, a Proof-of-Work mining algorithm that was later used in Bitcoin.
