We are excited to announce a new collaboration with Alpen Labs who are building the most trust-minimized possible bridge between Bitcoin and Starknet. This is exciting news for Bitcoin holders seeking yield opportunities with their BTC without compromising security and custody. It also marks a major milestone in Starknet’s journey to become the Bitcoin DeFi layer, enabling Bitcoin users to put their BTC to work in DeFi in the most trust-minimized way possible.
Why Glock?
Glock lies at the forefront of Bitcoin scaling research and enabling Bitcoin L2s. Building on the Alpen Labs team’s foundational work on BitVM and Bitcoin verification research, Glock represents the next generation of trust-minimized architecture. In essence, Glock defers computation from Bitcoin network itself to offchain entities. This design drastically reduces on-chain overhead, allowing for complex spending conditions on BTC without hitting existing Script limits. With Glock bridges, we can lock BTC on Bitcoin in a way that allows unlocking them only if they were burned on another chain. Unlike the multisig-based bridges that exist today, with Glock we can actually check these conditions on BTC rather than rely on mere attestations.
This more secure method of bridging BTC into Starknet will unlock a wide range of use cases for Bitcoin holders, from BTCFi opportunities to payments at scale, all in the most trustless way possible. We are constantly looking for ways to increase Bitcoin’s utility and usability without changing Bitcoin itself and we believe that the Glock approach is the right one in order to achieve that.
Starknet as a trust-minimized execution layer on Bitcoin
Strata serves as the layer securing BTC deposits to the Alpen EVM chain. Together with Alpen, we aim to make Starknet an additional execution layer for Strata. This means that the same security assumptions will apply to moving BTC to either Alpen or Starknet. This will enable builders and users to choose the execution layer that best fits their needs.
What’s next?
Alpen is finalizing Glock, the groundbreaking verification protocol based on garbled circuits that dramatically reduces the protocol’s on-chain footprint. Starknet and Alpen will be the first chains to adopt Glock for secure BTC bridging which will enable interoperability between them.
Building more secure bridges from Bitcoin is a challenging journey that requires deep research and innovation. Yet with every step taken alongside Alpen, we move closer to a future where Bitcoin’s unmatched security anchors a thriving, interoperable financial ecosystem. Starknet stands ready to lead the way. Stay tuned.
