what's { ideal }?

{ ideal } is a research group advancing cryptographic primitives to enable private and permissionless scaling on Bitcoin. Created by leading BitVM developers including Liam Eagen, Ying Tong Lai, and Robin Linus, it pushes beyond "good-enough" solutions toward ideal Bitcoin functionality. Their work leverages off-chain computation verifiable on Bitcoin Script, focusing on bridges, SNARK verification, and client-side validation without soft forks. Key innovations include Argo, an industry-leading garbled circuits scheme for efficient SNARK verification, achieving 2000× gains in size and speed via elliptic curve MACs and cut-and-choose proofs. This enables permissionless BitVM bridges with non-interactive setups and scalable watchtowers. They also develop Shielded CSV for privacy-preserving payments and scalability, detailed in ePrint papers (2026/049, 2025/068).