what's BitVM?
BitVM is a computing paradigm designed to enable Turing-complete smart contracts on Bitcoin without requiring any modifications to the network's consensus rules. It allows complex computations to be performed off-chain while leveraging Bitcoin's blockchain solely for verification, similar to optimistic rollups. In this model, a prover asserts the outcome of a computation, and if challenged, a verifier can submit a fraud proof to penalize incorrect claims, ensuring security through Bitcoin's scripting capabilities. BitVM3 represents an advanced iteration of this paradigm, focusing on simplicity, security, and succinctness. It significantly reduces transaction sizes and collateral requirements compared to earlier versions like BitVM2—for instance, shrinking proofs from megabytes to kilobytes and improving efficiency by orders of magnitude. This enables practical applications such as trustless bridges and DeFi primitives directly on Bitcoin, facilitating scalable second-layer solutions while maintaining the protocol's core trust-minimized verification process.
BitVM's latest iteration achieves 1000x storage/setup reduction and sub-$100 fees, improving on BitVM3.
Hosts BitVM Night event on 2026-02-18 in Denver with creators and core contributors, livestreamed at 01:15 UTC and 02:45 UTC.
A new witness encryption-based approach achieves 1000x reduction in storage and setup time compared to BitVM3 while maintaining transaction fees under $100.
BitVM3 reduced fees by 100x compared to BitVM2's $15K but requires terabyte storage, and a next iteration is announced to solve both constraints.
BOB token lists today on Binance Alpha, Kraken, Gate, and KuCoin, featuring native BTC via BitVM and cross-chain support across 11+ chains with partnerships including Uniswap, Chainlink, Fireblocks, and Euler.
Starknet announces they are building a BitVM-based rollup for Bitcoin to bring privacy and scaling, as full trustless ZK rollup is not currently achievable on Bitcoin.
Citrea announces successful completion of the Risc0-to-BitVM Trusted Setup Ceremony, the first dedicated to ZK proofs BitVM will verify on Bitcoin.
Citrea announces Clementine, which uses BitVM to express a zero-knowledge proof verifier on Bitcoin with a trust-minimized peg mechanism, requiring a trusted setup ceremony.
Security concern raised that BitVM implementations ship with backup threshold signatures that pose catastrophic global rug risk if compromised.
BOB launches Bitcoin Vaults Liquidation Engine powered by BitVM, enabling native BTC lending integration for Aave, Morpho Labs, and Euler Finance across multiple chains with features including open liquidations, atomic execution, partial liquidations, and fast settlements in minutes.
BitcoinOS, built using BitVM-related technology, raises $10m in funding with TGE and exchange listings expected soon. The project launches presale for $BOS token at $0.0072 with 21 billion total supply and partnerships including Arbitrum, Cardano, RISC Zero, and Merlin.
Live experiment demonstrates BitVM3's challenge mechanism on Bitcoin mainnet, with challenge path costing less than $125 in fees versus more than $16,000 for BitVM2.
Babylon launches first trustless BTC lending application using BitVM3 technology, enabling users to deposit BTC and borrow USDC on Ethereum mainnet.