What is BitcoinOS? Sovryn uses Rollup technology to solve Bitcoin's trilemma.

BitcoinOS is a Bitcoin operating system developed by the Sovryn community, aimed at transforming Bitcoin from a mere digital currency into a comprehensive platform that supports decentralized applications. Through zero-knowledge rollup technology, a layered modular architecture, and a nearly trustless BTC bridge, BitcoinOS addresses the three dilemmas of scalability, interoperability, and programmability that have plagued Bitcoin.

What is BitcoinOS? A revolutionary architecture that solves the Bitcoin scaling bottleneck

Bitcoin is the first and most valuable cryptocurrency, long regarded as the cornerstone of digital asset security and reliability. However, Bitcoin Core is limited in terms of scalability, and while Bitcoin script allows for a degree of programmability, its functionality is severely restricted. The emergence of BitcoinOS has changed this situation, transforming Bitcoin into a composite operating system capable of supporting decentralized applications, financial systems, and even governance systems.

Sovryn is a focused community made up of developers, entrepreneurs, and enthusiasts that has quietly built the largest and fastest-growing Bitcoin DeFi and smart contract ecosystem over the past two years. Sovryn follows a three-phase plan:

Sovryn Three-Stage Strategy:

Phase One: Build a leading Bitcoin-native DeFi tools ecosystem

Phase Two: Build a scalable protocol for trustless smart contracts on Bitcoin

Stage Three: Build the World on Bitcoin

Sovryn has convincingly completed the first phase and is now entering the second phase to facilitate the launch of BitcoinOS. Several key technologies are rapidly maturing, including Taproot, Lightning, and zero-knowledge rollups, making a new layered approach not only possible but inevitable.

Why do we need BitcoinOS? Analysis of the three core needs

Scalability Requirements: Breaking Through Transaction Throughput Bottlenecks

The reality is that Bitcoin itself cannot provide a global low-cost payment system. In fact, the first comment on Satoshi Nakamoto's release of the Bitcoin white paper was: “We really need such a system, but it seems unable to scale to the required size.” Decentralized financial technology also currently lacks the ability to scale web applications to a decentralized environment.

The problems solved by scalability include: making micropayments feasible and reducing the cost of centralized payment services; developers can confidently transact knowing that the chain can scale horizontally; and the overall network can handle transaction volumes on a global scale.

Interoperability Requirements: Breaking the Island Effect Between Chains

The ability to activate compatible chains or execution environment modules will bring about revolutionary changes. Chains that communicate and share data with each other will achieve a new level of composability. The shared gas market and bridges allow developers to focus on applications rather than infrastructure. Interoperability will attract more on-chain crypto-verifiable data, enabling users to build cross-platform reputations.

More importantly, the project will be integrated into an ecosystem based on Bitcoin security, rather than diluting its security budget across multiple chains. This will deepen liquidity and enhance the overall security of the ecosystem.

Programmability Requirements: Unlocking the Potential of Smart Contracts

The current use case range of Bitcoin is very narrow due to its scripting language deliberately limiting functionality. Another layer of programmability would allow Bitcoin's raw digital asset to be combined with various applications without modifying or jeopardizing the underlying layer in any way.

Programmability will allow Turing-complete environments to run EVM-compatible smart contracts and other applications, but it can also initiate special-purpose environments. By combining high composability and easy communication across application environments with a universal currency, explosive growth of new applications will be achieved.

Rollup Technology: The Core Innovation of BitcoinOS

BitcoinOS uses many technologies for modular blockchains, including validity proofs, zero-knowledge proofs, and fraud proofs, collectively known as “Rollup technology.” Rollups execute transactions off-chain and then bundle or “aggregate” them, compressing the amount of transaction space required. After being aggregated in this way, they are written to Bitcoin as a single transaction.

As part of BitcoinOS, Bitcoin aggregators have three key properties. First, because they are Turing complete, any rules can be established using any programming language or virtual machine. Second, transactions occur off-chain, allowing scalability far beyond the current Bitcoin transaction limits. Finally, each transaction pays for Bitcoin security and directly benefits from Bitcoin's security.

Any single aggregate can only have one virtual machine, and scalability is limited. BitcoinOS is a framework that addresses this trilemma: it provides a nearly trustless BTC bridge without the need for a soft fork; it offers interoperability and scalability; it achieves 100% security for Bitcoin.

BitcoinOS Layered Architecture Analysis

Bitcoin Core: The Unbreakable Foundation

Bitcoin Core serves as the base layer, and through strategic construction on this layer, BitcoinOS inherits the valuable properties of the base layer without needing to make any changes that could unintentionally introduce vulnerabilities. Bitcoin Core as the base layer ensures that every transaction on the network is ultimately recorded in an immutable and transparent manner.

Execution Layer: Batch Processing and Interoperability Hub

The execution layer includes the compression, aggregation, and settlement of transactions from the computing layer. This structure provides interoperability between aggregates. The execution layer batch processes, aggregates, and compresses transactions, offering higher scalability, transaction throughput, and lower costs per transaction.

The execution layer serves as a link that brings together the aggregations to form an interoperable and composable system. Each aggregation is represented as a smart contract on the execution layer. When a user executes a transaction, it is carried out through the smart contract that represents that aggregation on the execution layer.

The most critical aspect is that the execution layer addresses the core challenge of the three dilemmas—the ability to natively use BTC throughout the system without trust, whether as a native currency or a reserve asset.

Calculation Layer: Modular Execution Environment

The computation layer is an interoperable aggregation supported by BitcoinOS, referred to as the Execution Environment Module (EEM). This modular architecture provides developers with a choice of execution environments. These execution environments can be EVM-like, similar to Ethereum, or Rust-like, akin to Solana. They can be optimized for features such as privacy or speed.

The composability and interoperability allow developers to adopt a multi-language architecture while utilizing various programming languages and technologies. Users can mix and match functionalities, enabling the entire ecosystem to benefit from local optimizations. For instance, users may hold their BTC in a privacy-focused execution environment and then trade with exchanges based on standard non-custodial EVM.

Trustless BTC Bridge Breakthrough

Today's sidechains rely on a federated mechanism to bridge BTC between the Bitcoin main chain and the sidechains, with these federations relying on the honest majority assumption to ensure their security. However, the majority is tempted by the allure of censoring or even redistributing the value of the minority.

BitcoinOS aims to use honest singleton near-trustless BTC channels. A system that maintains its integrity and security with any number of honest participants is almost trustless, as even a single honest participant can protect the system. Through aggregation, BitcoinOS propagates transaction vacancy proofs to the aggregation network and optionally embeds them into the Bitcoin main chain. With the emergence of these proofs, individual participants can demonstrate false or ambiguous transactions and prevent them from occurring.

It is crucial that this feature can be implemented without any changes to Bitcoin Core. The innovation here can be fully realized without permission, making Bitcoin a truly permissionless system for users and developers.

SOV Token and Sovryn Governance Role

The SOV token is the governance token for the Sovryn module and jurisdiction within the BitcoinOS ecosystem. As the cornerstone of decentralized governance, SOV grants its holders voting rights, enabling them to guide the progress of the Sovryn module. This participatory governance extends to overseeing updates, managing resource allocation, and influencing strategic decisions.

Sovryn has initiated development on Rootstock, and the initial iteration of SOV has also started on Rootstock. With the launch of Sovryn's BitcoinOS environment, the new blockchain environment will require the standardized issuance of SOV. Sovryn Bitocracy is a proof of stake time (PoST) system, so the weight of stakeholders is measured in voting power (VP).