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Today, Citrea team reveals Citrea, the inaugural ZK Rollup designed to elevate the capabilities of the bitcoin blockchain through zero-knowledge technology. Unlike traditional scalability solutions that move security and demand off-chain, Citrea presents an approach to scaling bitcoin end-to-end with zero-knowledge proofs, ensuring on-chain verifiability and on-chain data availability. bitcoin network. This positions Citrea as one of the first scaling solutions to enable more complex applications without compromising bitcoin's security or altering its consensus rules.
The predominant problem with creating new blockspace solutions lies in their inability to inherit bitcoin's fundamental security, decentralization, and censorship-resistance properties. Citrea addresses this challenge by scaling the entire bitcoin blockspace using zero-knowledge proofs, offering a secure and decentralized alternative. It does this by using BitVM as a bridging mechanism between the rollup and the bitcoin blockchain.
BitVM allows you to configure the bridge between the cumulative operator (the prover in BitVM) and some set of monitors (the verifiers in BitVM). This allows the operator to be penalized and any of the verifiers to confiscate the guaranteed funds if they attempt to process an inaccurate withdrawal. The BitVM instance, if challenged by a verifier during withdrawal, would actually verify the full zero-knowledge proof in BitVM's challenge-response process.
As demand for bitcoin block space continues to rise, as evidenced by rising fees and increased interest, existing scalability proposals fail to address the growing need for inclusion. While some solutions redirect demand to separate consensus protocols or sidechains, Citrea aims to stand out by actively and efficiently utilizing the bitcoin blockspace in a verifiable manner without compromising its core principles.
Citrea's zero-knowledge rollup creates an execution fragment, batching multiple transactions with minimal essential data for on-chain verification. This method allows Citrea to maximize efficient utilization of the underlying block space while maintaining full bitcoin Layer 1 security.
The platform's mission is to advance bitcoin to the “next phase,” according to the announcement, positioning it as the foundation of the global financial infrastructure. The goal of Citrea's architecture is to provide a modular world for bitcoin, creating consistent fee income for miners, scaling btc trustlessly, and offering developers a versatile environment for building applications on bitcoin.
