The Risks and the Rewards of Soft Forks

John Light is a Bitcoin researcher who recently published a paper exploring how Validity Rollups might work on Bitcoin.

In our conversation, we first explored what zero-knowledge proofs and rollups are, we discussed the different ways in which rollups could be implemented, the risks and rewards to implementing rollups on Bitcoin, and the ways in which rollups and the Lightning Network could be complementary to each other.

→ Bitcoin Rollups: https://bitcoinrollups.org/

→ Unexpected Tradeoff from Bitcoin Soft Forks: https://bitcoinops.org/en/newsletters/2022/07/13/#x-only-workaround

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Links

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→ Blog: https://www.kevinrooke.com/blog

Timestamps

00:00 - Intro

02:26 - John Light Intro

10:31 - What are ZK-Proofs & Rollups?

18:23 - How Might Rollups Help Bitcoin Scalability

27:57 - Privacy Implications of Rollups on Bitcoin

34:25 - Rollup Security

39:44 - How Might Rollups Be Implemented on Bitcoin?

44:14 - The Case Against Rollups on Bitcoin

52:26 - Unintended Consequences of Bitcoin Soft Forks

1:00:45 - Validity Rollups vs. Lightning Network

1:11:06 - The Lightning Round