THE CHALLENGE
Enabling secure asset transfers between Bitcoin and Cardano, overcoming Bitcoin’s inherent limitations in
cross-chain transactions, thus encouraging greater adoption of Cardano for real-world financial use cases.
The ultimate goal is to allow users to manage their Bitcoin wallet and seamlessly share assets with Cardano,
enhancing interoperability between both blockchains efficiently and securely.
“The future of DeFi is cross-chain, and BitVMX exemplifies how Bitcoin can be a foundational layer in
this evolution, by combining Cardano’s flexibility with Bitcoin’s security, we open the door to entirely
new financial instruments and services.”
Charles Hoskinson, CEO of IO
THE TECHNOLOGY
BitVMX utilizes a novel transfer-of-ownership protocol to assign assets in Bitcoin to their legitimate owner.
Unlike other systems that handle ordinals and rely on centralized committees, BitVMX enables a decentralized
and secure connection, introducing a committee-based validation system that ensures security with a
"1-out-of-n honest" model, meaning that as long as at least one honest participant exists, the transfer
remains secure.
"We’re excited to introduce Cardinal, a protocol that enables Cardano’s infrastructure to play a pivotal role in augmenting Bitcoin. Cardinal defines a secure, trustless mechanism for Bitcoin holders to access DeFi — by wrapping their UTXOs (as demonstrated with Ordinals) and unlocking a number of possible use cases like staking, lending, borrowing, and more. This marks the beginning of a new era for Bitcoin DeFi, powered by Cardano’s extended UTXO model and smart contracts combined with BitVMX technology for extending Bitcoin programmability."
Romain Pellerin, CTO at IO
