Coin Market

StarkWare researchers propose smart contracts for Bitcoin with ColliderVM

Published

3 weeks ago

April 11, 2025

Sidechain developer StarkWare and Weizmann Institute of Science researchers claim to have created a workaround for multiple Bitcoin script limitations.

According to a recent research paper, the new design claims to allow the deployment of complex smart contracts on Bitcoin in a more capital-efficient manner. The new system may also be vastly more efficient from a computing standpoint.

ColliderVM is a protocol designed to enable stateful computation on Bitcoin, allowing multi-step processes to be securely executed over multiple transactions. Traditionally, Bitcoin script output is not accessible to other scripts, making complex calculations nearly impossible.

The researchers argue that ColliderVM could allow the use of Scalable Transparent Arguments of Knowledge (STARKs) — a type of zero-knowledge proof — on Bitcoin without requiring consensus-level changes to the network. The architecture would let Bitcoin verify complex offchain computations with minimal onchain data.

ColliderVM targets Bitcoin limitations

Each Bitcoin block can contain up to 4 million OPCodes (commands) across all transactions, and a single Bitcoin script can contain up to 1,000 stack elements (data entries). Furthermore, stateless execution means that each script executes without memory of previous state or intermediate computations from earlier transactions, making complex computations impractical.

The BitVM implementation from a 2023 paper by Robin Linus from Bitcoin research firm ZeroSync allowed for complex smart contracts on Bitcoin but required fraud proofs. Fraud proofs are cryptographic proofs that prove a particular transaction or computation was performed incorrectly, possibly triggering corrective actions.

Fraud-proof implementation typically requires operators to front capital for potential corrective actions. In BitVM, operators pay an advance to cover potentially fraudulent transactions, recovering the capital after the fraud-proof window closes.

The new system is also more efficient from a computing point of view, compared with previous implementations, but still expensive. Previous implementations used cryptographic one-time signatures (Lamport and Winternitz) that were notably computationally heavy.

ColliderVM draws from the November 2024 ColliderScript paper by researchers from StarkWare, web services firm Cloudflare and Bitcoin sidechain developer Blockstream. This system relies on a hash collision-based commitment setting a challenge to produce an input that, when run through a hash function, produces an output with pre-determined features.

This setup requires significantly fewer computing resources from honest operators than from malicious actors.

Computational resources needed by honest and malicious actors depending on collision difficulty. Source: ColliderVM paper

Hash, but no food or weed

A hash is a non-reversible mathematical function that can be run on arbitrary data, producing a fixed-length alphanumeric string. Non-reversible means that it is impossible to run the computation in reverse to obtain the original data from a hash.

This results in a sort of data ID identifying data to the bit, without containing any underlying data.

Hash function examples. Source: Wikimedia

This system — somewhat resembling Bitcoin (BTC) mining — requires significantly fewer hash operations compared to BitVM, reducing both script size and processing time. ColliderVM researchers claim to have reduced the number of those operations even further, by at least a factor of 10,000.

The researchers seemingly suggest that this implementation is nearly making a STARKs-based Bitcoin sidechain practical. The paper reads:

“We estimate that the Bitcoin script length for STARK proof verification becomes nearly practical, allowing it to be used alongside other, pairing-based proof systems common today in applications.”

STARKs are a ZK-proof system recognized for their scalability and trustless nature (no trusted setup is needed). ZK-proofs are a cryptographic system that allows users to prove a particular feature of a piece of data without revealing the underlying data.

Many early ZK-proof systems necessitated a one-time secure setup that relied on “toxic waste” data. If a party were to keep hold of the toxic waste, it would allow them to forge signatures and generate fraudulent proofs. STARKs do not rely on such a setup, making them trustless.

Traditional implementation of STARK verifiers would require scripts that exceed Bitcoin’s limits. Now, researchers behind ColliderVM argue that their more efficient system approaches make an onchain verification script for STARK-proofs “nearly practical.”

Bitcoin-based trustless sidechains?

Bitcoin is widely considered the most secure and reliable blockchain, but its critics raise issues with its feature set being significantly more limited when compared to many altcoins. Sidechains such as Blockstream’s Liquid exist, but are not trustless.

Director of research at blockchain firm Blockstream and mathematician Andrew Poelstra told Cointelegraph as far back as 2020 that ZK-proof-based systems are “one of the most exciting areas of development” in the cryptography space. Cypherpunk, a developer cited in the Bitcoin white paper and Blockstream founder, explained in a 2014 paper that more work was needed to implement trustless ZK-proof-based sidechains on Bitcoin.

Still, even 10 years later, a system based on ColliderVM would be trust-minimized rather than trustless. This is because users would still need to trust that at least a minimal subset of network participants will act honestly to ensure the correct functioning of the system.

The study’s lead authors include Eli Ben-Sasson, co-founder of StarkWare, along with researchers Lior Goldberg and Ben Fisch. Ben-Sasson is one of the original developers of STARKs and has long advocated for the use of zero-knowledge proofs to improve blockchain scalability.

In a recent interview with Cointelegraph, StarkWare co-founder Ben-Sasson noted that a real Bitcoin layer-2 solution would need to have “the security of Bitcoin itself.” Instead, current solutions rely on trust in signers or fraud-proof-based economic incentives. Still, he recognized the Lightning Network:

“We should also acknowledge there’s, of course, today, lightning networks, which have the security of Bitcoin.“

Magazine: ‘Bitcoin layer 2s’ aren’t really L2s at all: Here’s why that matters

Coin Market

Mastercard links with Circle, Paxos for merchant stablecoin payments

Published

5 minutes ago

April 29, 2025

Mastercard says it will allow merchants across its network to be paid with stablecoins in a partnership with payment processor Nuvei and stablecoin issuers Circle and Paxos.

Through the venture, 150 million merchants across the Mastercard network will now have the option to receive payments in stablecoins, regardless of how a customer pays, Mastercard said on April 28.

The payments giant also partnered with crypto exchange OKX for a crypto-enabled bank card, which Mastercard product chief Jorn Lambert said creates a “360-degree approach” where consumers can spend stablecoins and merchants can receive them.

He added that the “mainstream use cases are clear” for blockchain tech, and the company wanted “to make it as easy for merchants to receive stablecoin payments and for consumers to use them.”

Source: Mastercard News

The stablecoin market has continued to make gains, crossing a market value of $230 billion, an increase of 54% since last year, with Tether (USDT) and USDC (USDC) dominating 90% of the market.

Active stablecoin wallets have also increased over 50% in one year, according to a report last month from onchain analysis platforms Artemis and Dune.

Investment banking giant Citigroup predicted in an April 23 report that a combination of growing regulatory support and adoption by financial institutions has set the stage for the stablecoin market to reach as high as $3.7 trillion by 2030.

Mastercard launches another crypto card

Mastercard said its partnership with OKX for the so-called OKX Card aims to give crypto users “easy access to their funds” and integrate stablecoins into daily transactions.

OKX marketing chief Haider Rafique said the exchange’s venture with Mastercard is “a significant step toward integrating stablecoins into daily transactions and creating richer experiences.”

Crypto wallet maker MetaMask also partnered with Mastercard on April 28 to launch a crypto payments card allowing users to spend self-custodied funds, using smart contracts to execute the IRL (In Real Life) transactions, with a processing speed under five seconds.

Mastercard has also worked with crypto exchanges like Kraken, Binance, and Crypto.com to allow crypto-enabled debit cards.

Magazine: Bitcoin payments are being undermined by centralized stablecoins

Coin Market

Ethereum Foundation shuffles leadership, splits board and management

Published

1 hour ago

April 29, 2025

The Ethereum Foundation, which backs the development of the Ethereum blockchain, has overhauled its leadership structure to separate the responsibilities of its management team and board of directors.

The board will act as the “security council to protect the heart and soul” of the foundation and set visions for Ethereum, while the new management will be focused on the strategic and operational execution of those visions, the Foundation said in an April 28 blog post.

It added in an April 28 X post that Hsiao-Wei Wang and Tomasz K. Stańczak were appointed as co-executive directors on March 2 to deliver on those visions — which are centered around championing censorship resistance, open-source innovation, privacy and security

Wang and Stańczak’s roles took effect on April 28 with the foundation setting a two-year term for Stańczak to address some of Ethereum’s biggest challenges. Stańczak’s new role will be balanced with his work as founder of Ethereum infrastructure firm Nethermind and a soon-to-be-announced Ethereum-focused venture capital firm.

Source: Ethereum Foundation

Bastian Aue and Josh Stark are also a part of the management team, with Aue to focus on organizational strategy, hiring and training, and Stark to primarily be tasked with project execution, communications and marketing.

The board consists of Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, the Ethereum Foundation’s President Aya Miyaguchi, Swiss counsel Patrick Storchenegger, and Wang, who will bridge between the board and management team.

Buterin will continue providing technical and intellectual guidance on the Ethereum ecosystem, Miyaguchi will oversee the foundation’s vision while managing external relationships, and Storchenegger will keep handling legal and compliance matters.

The board was responsible for selecting Wang and Stańczak as executive directors — a decision they acknowledged was unconventional — and they also have the power to terminate those positions.

The Ethereum Foundation has adopted a more active role in the Ethereum ecosystem in recent months, following criticism from Synthetix founder Kain Warwick that the foundation “doesn’t care” about decentralized finance innovation.

Others in the Ethereum community previously attributed the foundation’s lack of engagement and leadership to Ether’s (ETH) poor price performance relative to Bitcoin (BTC) and Solana (SOL).

Ethereum Foundation’s main focus is scaling

The Foundation said its three main focus areas over the next 12 months would be to scale the Ethereum layer 1, scale blobs at the layer 2 level, and improve user experience.

Ethereum Foundation researcher Dankrad Feist and protocol support Sophia Gold have already pitched proposals to to address Ethereum’s scaling woes at the base layer under Ethereum Improvement Proposals-9678 and 9698.

Both EIPs look to raise the gas limit, which should theoretically raise Ethereum’s transaction throughput by the same magnitude.

Magazine: Ethereum is destroying the competition in the $16.1T TradFi tokenization race

Coin Market

BONK price gains 60% in a week as Solana memecoins make a comeback

Published

2 hours ago

April 29, 2025

Key takeaways:

BONK price is up 73% since April 22, hitting a five-month high of $0.00002167.

BONK’s open interest surged 290% to $43.2 million.

Bonk (BONK), the second-largest Solana-based memecoin by market capitalization, is on track to continue the recovery it began on April 22. BONK has climbed approximately 73% from its April 22 low of around $0.00001247, bringing its price up to an intraday high of $0.00002167 on April 28.

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows BONK trading at $0.00001923, up 3% over the 24 hours and 60% over the last seven days.

BONK/USD daily chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView

BONK’s trading volume has jumped 98% over the last 24 hours to $478 million, and its market capitalization also jumped, briefly touching $1.7 billion on April 28, before retracing to the current level of $1.5 billion.

Let’s examine the factors that have fueled BONK’s price momentum over the last week.

Memecoins recover across the board

BONK’s rally over the last seven days mirrors the bullish price movements across the broader crypto market, including the memecoin sector. Most memecoins have posted double-digit gains over the last week. DOGE and Shiba Inu (SHIB), the leading memecoins, have jumped 3% and 5% over the last seven days.

Official Trump (TRUMP), the memecoin associated with US President Donald Trump, has recorded 73% weekly gains, while Base’s Brett (BRETT) has rallied 83% over the same period.

Performance of top-cap memecoins. Source: CoinMarketCap

This widespread rally has pushed the total memecoin market value to $55.51 billion, a 17.5% leap in the past week, as per CoinMarketCap data.

Memecoin market cap and volume. Source: CoinMarketCap

Over $7.96 billion in memecoin trading volume was recorded in the past seven days alone, representing an 85% weekly change. The resurgence is driven by investors once again embracing risk-on assets like memecoins.

Increasing open interest backs BONK’s rally

The surge in the price of Bonk over the last seven days comes after a significant jump in its open interest (OI).

BONK’s total OI on all exchanges rose 290% from $11 million on April 22 to $43.2 million on April 26. Although this metric has since dropped to $28 million at the time of writing, it remains significantly higher than the OI seen since December 2024.

Rising open interest reflects growing trader participation in BONK futures, indicating heightened speculative activity.

BONK open interest across all exchanges. Source: CoinGlass

Data from CoinGlass shows increasing demand for leveraged long positions in BONK over the last few days, as indicated by the OI-weighted futures funding rate.

BONK average perpetual contracts 8-hour funding rate. Source: CoinGlass

Increasing funding rates usually suggest that futures traders are bullish, expecting future price increases, which may indicate a continuation of the uptrend.

BONK’s social dominance remains high, suggesting high social activity. Santiment data shows BONK’s social dominance spiking from 0.091% to 0.572% between April 20 and April 26, driven by BONK’s ecosystem buzz.

BONK social dominance and volume. Source: Santiment

This surge in chatter on social media platforms reflects rising retail and institutional interest, amplifying FOMO and driving demand.

BONK breaks out of a multimonth downtrend

On April 13, BONK price broke out of a descending parallel channel, igniting strength that saw it flip the 50-day and 100-day exponential moving averages (EMAs) to support.

The bulls will likely continue the rebound toward the significant resistance level at $0.00002410 (200-day SMA) in the short term. A daily candlestick close above this level, accompanied by high volume, could see BONK rise toward the Jan. 19 range high near $0.000040. This would represent a 104% increase from the current price.

BONK/USD daily chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView

The sharp rise in the relative strength index and its position at 71 in the overbought region reinforces the buyers’ dominance in the market.

However, the overbought conditions could facilitate profit-taking, occasioning a slight correction before BONK continues its uptrend.

“$BONK’s descending trendline got cleared,” declared popular analyst World of Charts in an April 28 post on X, “expecting 2x in the coming days.”

Meanwhile, Crypto Joe spotted BONK breaking out of a bullish pennant in the 30-minute timeframe targeting $0.00002690.

Source: Crypto Joe

This article does not contain investment advice or recommendations. Every investment and trading move involves risk, and readers should conduct their own research when making a decision.