Crypto News: Chain-Key Bitcoin Launched
Crypto news: the launch of the final version of ckBTC, Chain-Key Bitcoin, was announced yesterday.
📢#ckBTC is now completely released 👏
Proposals 115468, 115470 and 115473 passed with flying colours. Thank you all #ICPeople who voted manually to make this happen 🙏
If you have #BTC in your wallet, you can now put it to real use #ICP
— DFINITY (@dfinity) 3 April 2023
Chain-Key Bitcoin has actually been made available on the Internet computer, thus enabling BTC holders to use Bitcoin on the Internet computer (IC) network via the wrapped token ckBTC.
ckBTC acts as a kind of “twin” to Bitcoin on IC, enabling fast, low-cost, cryptographically secure and fully on-chain transactions. The goal is to bring more decentralization within DeFi and the blockchain industry.
Internet computer and the latest crypto news about Bitcoin
Internet computing is a blockchain that wants to run “at the speed of the web”, and with unlimited capacity. It is a scalable and fast computer on the blockchain with native smart contract capabilities.
The goal is to offer a new way to create tokenized Internet services.
The IC project was incubated and launched by the DFINITY Foundation, a non-profit scientific research organization based in Zurich, Switzerland. DFINITY itself announced yesterday the launch of ckBTC.
Internet Computer also has its own native cryptocurrency, ICP, whose market value, however, was not positively affected by the news of ckBTC’s launch.
It is worth mentioning that ICP peaked in price at its launch on the crypto markets in May 2021 and has since lost more than 99% of its value.
Then again, in the DeFi sphere, as DeFiLlama’s data shows, it’s an absolutely marginal chain, with a TVL of less than $320,000.
Nevertheless, the IC project continues to be promoted by some as an “Ethereum killer”, especially now that it enables the use of smart contracts powered in wrapped Bitcoin.
Smart contracts on Bitcoin
The Bitcoin protocol does not allow for complex smart contracts, such as those native to Ethereum, and the blockchain is slow and expensive.
The idea behind Chain-Key Bitcoin on the Internet computer is to make possible native on-chain smart contracts that indirectly use BTC without having to create them on the Bitcoin blockchain itself.
Chain-Key Bitcoin actually makes it possible to indirectly use BTC on the IC blockchain thanks to a token enclosing BTC, called ckBTC, which for all intents and purposes represents Bitcoin tokens on the IC blockchain.
In addition, IC can be scaled practically infinitely, guaranteeing fast transactions at limited costs.
So while this innovation does not allow smart contracts on Bitcoin, it brings Bitcoin into IC’s smart contracts, similar to how, for example, WBTC has long since brought Bitcoin into the Ethereum blockchain.
The ckBTC tokens will be redeemable at any time 1:1 with BTC.
In addition, the Internet Computer will integrate with the Bitcoin network at the protocol level, thus providing a secure solution. With this integration, Bitcoin transactions can be performed on-chain quickly and cost-effectively, facilitating the incorporation of Bitcoin into DeFi and Web3 services, without having to rely on centralized bridging services.
Unlike wrapped tokens controlled by a centralized entity, ckBTC uses decentralized smart contracts for asset transfers, so no middlemen are needed.
ckBTC will then be integrated into various decentralized applications (dApps), such as DEX Infinity Swap and ICLighthouse.
The comment
DFINITY founder and chief scientist Dominic Williams said:
“The direct integration with the Bitcoin protocol was the first step in bringing ckBTC to life. After months of hard work and discussion with the community, ckBTC is now available for everyone to benefit from. ckBTC means low transaction fees, speed and, most importantly everything, no bridges This is a milestone in the Bitcoin journey, and the DFINITY Foundation is excited to see how projects building on the Internet Computer Blockchain implement ckBTC and explore new use cases.
