Litecoin’s New Chapter: Trustless ZK Rollup Unveiled
For years, Litecoin’s narrative as the digital silver to Bitcoin’s gold has appeared to be on the wane, with its price down some 76% from its all-time high set more than four years ago.
But that doesn’t mean Litecoin has been forgotten. On the occasion of the Litecoin Summit, BitcoinOS has revealed that it’s pioneering a trustless ZK rollup for Litecoin.
“Litecoin is one of the biggest chains out there with a massive audience,” Edan Yago, co-founder and core contributor to BitcoinOS, told Decrypt. “I think we’re about to see a renaissance.”
Their latest work with Litecoin, through LitVM, a Layer 2 protocol compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine, would enable native peer-to-peer transfers and stablecoin rails.
“Litecoin has proven to be an asset for almost 14 years with no downtime. It’s only right that through ZK tech, its strengths will now be available to other chains,” Charlie Lee, the chain’s creator, said in a statement shared with Decrypt.
For the first time, Litecoin will benefit from a zero-knowledge rollup (ZK rollup). The tech works by grouping many transactions together into a single batch, saving space and speeding up transactions.
Launched using BitcoinOS’s BitSNARK ZK verifier, the new rollup for Litecoin aims to unlock a new era for Litecoin by enabling trustless bridging and cross-chain transactions with Bitcoin and other blockchains like Cardano.
“It integrates Litecoin deeply with Bitcoin and Cardano,” and “reduces fragmentation” in the process, Yago explained.
For end users, the integration could help them make the most out of the best features of all three blockchains, Yago claimed.
“It utilizes the best of all worlds: the security of Bitcoin, the speed of Litecoin, smart contracts and DeFi from the rest of crypto,” he said, claiming that the integration would result in “a unified ecosystem where they have less trust assumptions, where there are no bridges, and [where] they can put their BTC to work.”
Asked about the integration’s long-term potential, Yago told Decrypt that while there has been “this whole smart contract chain world, with a new chain coming up every single day,” that proliferation created “fragmentation and exhaustion with users.”
With their latest work, Yago believes Litecoin could turn “into a key hub” for the broader ecosystem.
Proof-of-concept
Earlier this month, BitcoinOS demonstrated a proof-of-concept where it sent Cardano to Bitcoin and back without using a cross-chain bridge.
But that demo came in for criticism from some quarters, with Robert Roose, founder of blockchain interoperability developer Mynth, accusing BitcoinOS of making “seemingly impossible” claims and evading responses to technical questions.
In a lengthy follow-up post, BitcoinOS noted that the demo was, “not a complete production system,” and that, “Parts of the system were not quite ready and were stubbed out.”
Decrypt has reached out to BitcoinOS and Roose for comment, and will update this article should they respond.