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Interoperability project Interlay launched BTC parallel chain based in Boca, previously funded by the Web 3 Foundation

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PolkaBTC: Untrusted Bitcoin on Polkadot

In the first phase of Polkadot's launch, interoperability project Interlay announced the launch of bitcoin's trust-free bridge to Polkadot: the BTC parallel chain. Once online, users will be able to cast 1:1 bitcoin-backed assets on PolkaBTC and use them in a wide range of applications, including decentralized transactions, currency stabilization mechanisms and lending protocols. The Interlay project was selected in March to receive funding from the Web 3 Foundation, and the BTC parallel chain framework based on Boca is being implemented in Rust. The code is open source on Github and the specification is available online.

PolkaBTC: Untrusted Bitcoin on Polkadot

In 2016, The Polkadot Whitepaper identified security interoperability with Bitcoin as a key and challenging feature. In January 2020, with the launch of boca Master, the Web3 Foundation commissioned Interlay to design an Xclaim-based trust-free Bitcoin bridge to Polkadot. At the heart of XCLAIM is the introduction of the concept of cryptocurrency return assets. The asset is locked in bitcoin, in the form of 1:1 bitcoin on the boka. PolkaBTC can be used like any local asset in the Polkadot ecosystem, which means that they can be easily transferred and integrated into other Parachains and applications.