Share this article
Blockchain Bridging Protocol LayerZero to Connect With Bitcoin Sidechain Rootstock
Rootstock's aim is to end Bitcoin's "isolation" from other chains due to its lack of native smart contracts.
Updated May 8, 2025, 3:55 p.m. Published Feb 20, 2025, 8:00 a.m.
What to know:
- LayerZero plans to connect to Bitcoin sidechain Rootstock in what would be its first integration with the original blockchain.
- Rootstock is designed to end Bitcoin's "isolation" from other chains.
LayerZero, the bridging protocol that allows different crypto networks to communicate with each other, plans to connect to Bitcoin sidechain Rootstock in what would be its first integration with the world's original blockchain.
Rootstock aims to end Bitcoin's "isolation" from other blockchains due to its lack of native smart contracts, a barrier that LayerZero is able to address, according an emailed announcement shared with CoinDesk.
STORY CONTINUES BELOW
The Bitcoin blockchain lacks the functionality to offer smart contracts that other blockchains have and which are fundamental building decentralized finance (DeFi) services.
This lack of provision for DeFi on Bitcoin, which holds more value that every other blockchain combined, is an impediment to even greater adoption. That's prompting developers to seeking ways of tapping into the massive liquidity that is held in bitcoin (BTC) and allowing it to be bridged to rest of the crypto world.
With the connection between Rootstock and LayerZero, developers would be able to build applications on the Bitcoin sidechain that can communicate with the over 100 other blockchains, including Ethereum and Solana, Rootstock said in the announcement.
More For You
What to know:
- As of October 2025, GoPlus has generated $4.7M in total revenue across its product lines. The GoPlus App is the primary revenue driver, contributing $2.5M (approx. 53%), followed by the SafeToken Protocol at $1.7M.
- GoPlus Intelligence's Token Security API averaged 717 million monthly calls year-to-date in 2025 , with a peak of nearly 1 billion calls in February 2025. Total blockchain-level requests, including transaction simulations, averaged an additional 350 million per month.
- Since its January 2025 launch , the $GPS token has registered over $5B in total spot volume and $10B in derivatives volume in 2025. Monthly spot volume peaked in March 2025 at over $1.1B , while derivatives volume peaked the same month at over $4B.
More For You
ZKsync Lite to Shut Down in 2026 as Matter Labs Moves On
The company framed the move, happening in early 2026, as a planned sunset.
What to know:
- Matter Labs plans to deprecate ZKsync Lite, the first iteration of its Ethereum layer-2 network, the team said in a post on X over the weekend.
- The company framed the move, happening in early 2026, as a planned sunset for an early proof-of-concept that helped validate their zero-knowledge rollup design choices before newer systems went live.
Top Stories
