Project Name: Boltz
Founder Name: Kilian, Michael & Karl
Submission Date: September 19th 2024
Award Amount: 0.0805 RBTC
Project Stage: Testnet for several months, about to launch on Mainnet
Sector: Exchange/Swaps/Payments
Links to Deck / Video / Images:
Description: Boltz is a “Non-Custodial Bitcoin Bridge” and the easiest way to move satoshis between different Bitcoin layers without giving up control. It currently supports the Bitcoin mainchain, the Lightning Network, the Liquid Network and is about to launch support for Rootstock.
Mission: Boltz is on a mission to establish itself as the go-to non-custodial bridge between Bitcoin layers. Due to focus on the Lightning Network, it is especially suited for enabling near-instant low-value payment use cases between Bitcoin layers as well as letting users explore new ecosystems with small amounts. Boltz solves a major pain point for new Rootstock users: to easily and cheaply obtain small amounts of RBTC and explore new use cases in the Rootstock ecosystem.
Product: Boltz leverages Atomic swaps to achieve its non-custodial property. Atomic Swaps employ Hashed Timelock Contracts (HTLCs) which, in layman’s terms, enable the two transactions (both sides of the swap) to be linked together cryptographically. Leveraging this technology, there is no way for one transaction of a swap to complete without the other transaction completing too. Vice versa, if one transaction fails, the other transaction fails too.
This is the most trustless technology that exists for moving satoshis between Bitcoin layers and gives users peace of mind as they don’t need to trust or rely on Boltz. As of January 2024, Boltz features Taproot Swaps, which has helped to dramatically improve UX for failed Atomic Swaps.
Boltz features an easy-to-use Web App and various native integrations into other platforms and wallets like Aqua via its open, trustless API. Boltz is a pioneer behind the concept of a trustless API and has various integration efforts ongoing with projects on Rootstock.
Team: Boltz has been operating since 2019 and was incorporated in 2023 by Kilian, Michael and Karl, all former team members of the OpenDEX project. The experience gained while working on OpenDEX gives the team behind Boltz a unique position in being involved in the development of the Lightning Network since its inception and vast experience in developing cross-chain atomic swap protocols. For instance, the Boltz team is running one of the oldest and largest nodes on the Lightning Network today.
Progress: Boltz achieved one of its main goals since receiving the Rootstock grant in developing an atomic swap protocol that does not require the end-user to hold RBTC in order to swap to RBTC, which was a major disadvantage of pervious solutions so far. This was achieved through collaboration with the RIF Relay team, allowing Boltz to develop an atomic swap protocol with sponsored transactions using RIF Relay. This was extensively tested on Testnet and is about to launch on Mainnet. Integration of Rootstock swaps into the Boltz Web App was finalized. One of the first native integrations going live with our Mainnet launch is the Wesatoshis Labs card, leveraging RBTC<>Lightning swaps to facilitate payments at any merchant accepting Lightning, using RBTC.
Roadmap:
- Launch Rootstock swaps on Mainnet
- UX improvements (e.g. using a RNS address for swaps)
- Integrate natively with major Rootstock projects, like Sovryn, to dramatically improve UX for end-users
- Bring Rootstock’s Smart Contract capabilities to Bitcoin-native projects, like e.g. Geyser which intends to use Rootstock to bring long-awaited all-or-nothing campaigns to their platform
Conclusion: Boltz bridges the gap between Bitcoin layers in a non-custodial manner and is the easiest way to obtain RBTC. It enables users to easily explore Rootstock, to spend RBTC and brings Rootstock to Bitcoin-native projects in ways that haven’t been possible before.