Computing on Bitcoin #54
August 29, 2025 - Week 35

Welcome to a new edition of Computing on Bitcoin News, your weekly roundup of cutting-edge work pushing Bitcoin into new territory.

Let’s dive in!

01

At BTC++ in Istanbul (Sept 3–5), as part of the BitVMX FORCE initiative, Fairgate Labs’ Ariel Futoransky, Ramses Fernandez and Martin Jonas will explore many BitVMX related topics, such as Garbled Circuits, demo building a BitVM bridge with BitVMX, while Rootstock's Raul Laprida will unveil one of the most advanced BitVMX bridges, Union Bridge, soon launching on testnet.

btcplusplus.dev
🔗 bitcoin++ is scaling

"Can bitcoin scale?" It's a question we've been asking since the project launched in 2009. With dozens of new layer-twos popping up and more users joining the network, Bitcoin is bigger than it's ever been. How much bigger will it go? In this three day event in Istanbul we'll dive deep into BitVM and the frontier of zero-knowledge proofs, to explore not just where Bitcoin is but where it could be a decade from now. Join us in Istanbul this coming September for a deep dive into the forefront of scaling peer to peer exchange, both on-chain and off.

02

A new Fiamma blog details the first BitVM2 challenge execution, simulating malicious Operator behavior to prepare for real Bitcoin verification on a production-ready bridge.

medium.com/@Fiamma.io
🔗 Inside the First BitVM2 Challenge Execution: Preparing for Real Bitcoin Verification on a Production-Ready BitVM2 Bridge

While audit reports validate the protocol’s logic and security, they cannot fully convey real-world risks. By openly simulating malicious scenarios, Fiamma Bridge aims to build user trust, gain market recognition, and push the Operator role closer to becoming permissionless.

03

Rootstock introduces the upcoming Reed Network Upgrade, which cuts BTC withdrawal costs by 60%, expands PowPeg pegnatories from 9 to 20 for stronger decentralization, and prepares the ground for the Union Bridge, a BitVMX-powered, trust-minimized bridge enabling verifiable and programmable Bitcoin transfers.

rootstock.io/blog
🔗 Reed NetworkUpgrade

The Reed Network Upgrade is more than a technical milestone, it’s a strategic leap toward greater security, decentralization, and stronger guarantees for Bitcoin assets moving between Bitcoin and Rootstock. By allowing for an increased number of PowPeg pegnatories, Reed enhances the resilience of Rootstock’s two-way bridge, reducing reliance on any single entity and reinforcing the trust-minimized foundation of the network.

04

Waterdrip Capital surveys the BTC L2 landscape, comparing Lightning, Thunderbolt, RGB, ZK-rollups, and BitVM/BitVM2. It highlights BitVM’s unique approach of enabling Turing-complete computation directly in Bitcoin Script, positioning it as a frontier experiment for secure, BTC-native smart contracts.

waterdripcapital.medium.com
🔗 The BTC Ecosystem Race: Who Will Emerge as the Ultimate Value Carrier?

If BTC has already been widely recognized as “digital gold,” why is further ecosystem development still necessary? The answer lies in BTC’s extremely simplified scripting language and its PoW consensus, which ensures unmatched security and decentralization, but also severely limits scalability and programmability. As the foundational anchor asset of the entire crypto industry, BTC still has vast untapped potential. For instance, if just 10% of BTC (about 2.1 million coins) were deployed in DeFi, at a price of $100,000 per coin, this could unlock as much as $210 billion in liquidity.

05

BOB explores Bitcoin DeFi, outlining hybrid rollups, BitVM bridges, liquid staking, and restaking as the foundations for building a more expressive Bitcoin economy.

gobob.xyz/blog
🔗 What is Bitcoin DeFi (BTCFi)

‍Bitcoin DeFi has experienced a staggering 2,000% surge in total value locked (TVL) over the past year, jumping from US$305 million at the start of 2024 to US$6.5 billion today. With still only 0.3% of Bitcoin’s total market cap being used in decentralized finance, this recent influx highlights immense potential for DeFi on Bitcoin.
To put things into perspective, approximately 30% of Ethereum is currently used in DeFi, which means if the same percentage of Bitcoin was used for DeFi, it would create over $750 billion in TVL - a more than 100x growth opportunity.

Thanks for reading this week’s edition of Computing on Bitcoin News.

We’ll continue tracking the latest news and articles that make Bitcoin more programmable and secure for everyone.

See you next Friday!

—The Fairgate Team