Off-chain computation protocols have been around for quite some time but this one provides for cryptographic disincentivization with disproof. I imagine computations are hence published without demonstration of correctness, unlike VM chains. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Robin Linus via bitcoin-dev <bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org> Date: Mon, 9 Oct 2023 15:46:24 +0200 Subject: [bitcoin-dev] BitVM: Compute Anything on Bitcoin To: bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org Abstract. BitVM is a computing paradigm to express Turing-complete Bitcoin contracts. This requires no changes to the network’s consensus rules. Rather than executing computations on Bitcoin, they are merely verified, similarly to optimistic rollups. A prover makes a claim that a given function evaluates for some particular inputs to some specific output. If that claim is false, then the verifier can perform a succinct fraud proof and punish the prover. Using this mechanism, any computable function can be verified on Bitcoin. Committing to a large program in a Taproot address requires significant amounts of off-chain computation and communication, however the resulting on-chain footprint is minimal. As long as both parties collaborate, they can perform arbitrarily complex, stateful off-chain computation, without leaving any trace in the chain. On-chain execution is required only in case of a dispute. https://bitvm.org/bitvm.pdf _______________________________________________ bitcoin-dev mailing list bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/bitcoin-dev