Programmable Off‑Chain Bitcoin Beyond Payments

Alex is Head of Ecosystem at Ark Labs. We discuss their new bitcoin protocol: Arkade. It can be used with the lightning network to make self custody bitcoin usage more powerful and accessible. This rip was in person, in Lugano. We are both here for the PlanB Forum.

Alex B on Nostr: https://primal.net/alexb
Alex B on X: https://x.com/bergealex4
Ark Labs: https://arklabs.xyz/
PlanB Forum: https://planb.lugano.ch/planb-forum/

EPISODE: 182
BLOCK: 920390
PRICE:  915 sats per dollar

(00:00:35) Arkade Activation Day in Lugano

(00:03:11) What is Ark? Positioning vs. Lightning and L2s

(00:04:32) Ark fundamentals: batching, VTXOs, and two-of-two with an operator

(00:08:38) Double-spend risks and the operator trust model

(00:10:24) Settling vs. zero conf: anchoring batches onchain

(00:16:04) Beyond cheap payments: programmable offchain Bitcoin

(00:18:12) Ark Lightning swaps and unilateral exits

(00:21:01) Unilateral exit costs, trees of transactions, and anchoring cadence

(00:26:17) Wallet UX: automating settlement and exposure management

(00:27:22) Ark vs. Spark: security model and settlement feedback to L1

(00:34:39) Onchain demand: Lightning realities, Spark cadence, Ark batches

(00:36:59) Ark is tech, Arkade is implementation

(00:37:45) Batch frequency and scaling: hundreds per batch, Taproot efficiency

(00:38:41) Covenants soft fork would cut interactivity overhead

(00:42:01) Users, servers, and always on clients: who runs what?

(00:45:02) DeFi on Arkade: loans, new opcodes, and secondary markets

(00:47:00) Credit, derivatives, and Bitcoinization

(00:55:06) Company model: Ark Labs, open source Arkade, and revenue

(01:01:02) Flagship apps strategy: neo-bank, swaps, prediction markets

(01:07:05) Try it today: arkade.money PWA and roadmap to native apps

(01:12:05) Operators landscape: competition, network effects, resilience

(01:15:27) Closing thoughts: adapt, focus, and take the white pill