Direct Integration with Bitcoin

Hello, are there any updates on the progress with the bitcoin integration?

Good question. I have pinged the team to post an update.

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Dear community!

It has been some time since the last update on the Bitcoin feature. Thus, let me give you an update on the progress of the Bitcoin integration.

There has been excellent progress on the implementation front for this feature. The team has progressed the implementation of the StableBTreeMap, its integration in the replica code, and fixes of the Adapter so that we were able to sync an IC testnet with the Bitcoin testnet. :tada: So, the memory management with the StableBTreeMap, one of the large remaining items so far, is largely working. There have been some glitches observed, but, as we think, nothing too major.

The next steps now are to iron out some of the issues we have observed during these runs on the testnet and perform further runs in test environments to get sufficient confidence that everything works as intended. Then (This will be soon!) we will be ready for a first deployment on an IC mainnet subnet that we will observe and test for some time. Once the system has been confirmed to work as intended, we will open the feature up to to a public audience for testing (and developing against the API).

As a side task, another team is working on the SDK integration of the feature, i.e., managing the Bitcoin Adapter process from the SDK, including its configuration. This is crucial work that helps get the feature fully completed and allow people to conveniently implement canisters against the BTC Canister API.

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:tada: :tada: :tada:

Wooo! Awesome job!

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When all things of this feature will be done ? in Q2, Q3 or Q4?

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The Chromium (aka Satoshi Release) Milestone has been moved to end of May 2022. This feature as well as the threshold ECDSA feature (Threshold ECDSA Signatures) are the essential parts of this milestone. The teams are working really hard on both of those features to meet the end-of-May timeline. To manage expectations: If everything works really well, we may meet this timeline, but there is a possibility of it slipping by some weeks. So Q2 (late May or June) is within very realistic reach and is clearly what we aim for, but if unknowns hit us and we lose time on things we have not been planning for, it may be Q3 (July).

Features of the size and complexity as the Bitcoin integration and threshold ECDSA are of exploratory nature and many difficulties have needed to be overcome during our implementation efforts. For this reason, they are just not as plannable as regular “commodity” software development, that’s why we cannot give a definite deadline.

We will keep you all posted on our progress on the features and also give you updates on the timeline as we get closer to completion. Thank you all for your patience in awaiting the launch of the Bitcoin and threshold ECDSA features which will unlock a plethora of exciting use cases for the Internet Computer blockchain.

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great to hear that. Hopefully, no delay.

Is this what I think it is ?!?

Is this a way more convenient way to use the stable memory instead of using ic_cdk::storage or fiddling with bytes using the stable api ??

If it is, out of joy, tears are starting to come to my eyes :face_holding_back_tears:

I can’t wait to use it !

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In short, yes. More details will follow in due time once its GA version will be open sourced.

:slight_smile:

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Exciting update: proposal 57849 turned on BTC testnet sync on subnet 2fq7c, so this is the first sign of BTC integration reaching mainnet! Note that you can’t use this yet (it isn’t responding to requests yet) but is mainly for us to see how this runs on mainnet and ensure everything works as expected.

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Might I ask what are the benefits of the bitcoin integration? Does it mean that IC app users can send and receive btc directly in their wallet? Thanks

Yes. Not only that, it means that BTC can now be controlled and programmed by a smart contract fully on-chain. This is not possible today.

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Hello, I was wondering why the Bitcoin Canister is limited to only UTXO/balances data? Is other data not stored in the canister because of memory limits? Are there plans to provide more data in the future, such as past transactions? I think this would enhance the utility of the Bitcoin integration a lot.

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I’m really curious what value this would actually bring to the network. You can wrap btc on icp, okay cool. I really hate the “unlocking a trillion dollars in liquidity” narrative it’s so misleading.

Big bitcoin holders know ICP as a rugpull, why would they move liquidity here? To use on what defi platform exactly?

Fact is, the icp ecosystem is a confused mess right now with no defined future direction. “Integrate with everything” isn’t a sustainable design ethos. If anything, it shows a lack of confidence in your own network.

最简单的说,它不需要单独的桥,它足够安全,这就够了

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comment english please

No wrapping is necessary. Giving smart contracts to native BTC exposes a lot of different use cases which, for competive reasons, will become obvious when btc integration happens.

Till then,well, just ride it out.

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There is not much confusion on the roadmap. Sure it’s long and does not, in part, take the directions/priorities that i would like to see.

I just see it as typical software development program with a few gosh-darn-its along the way. Oh and then this crypto thing is just hard ; especially trying things that have not been tried before.

I do see a lot of quality thought being put into the design etc

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use cases like what? And who will care about it?