Mining pools Antpool, F2Pool, and SpiderPool, which together provide over one-third of Bitcoin’s total hashrate, backed the implementation of BitVM technology. This technology enables the deployment of complex smart contracts on the Bitcoin mainnet without changing its underlying protocol.
Bitlayer announced a strategic partnership with three leading Bitcoin mining pools — Antpool, F2Pool, and SpiderPool. The combined hashrate share of these pools is 36.2%, making them critical participants for the successful rollout of BitVM Bridge, an infrastructure solution that supports non-standard transactions (NST), as well as the use of BTC in DeFi and Layer 2 solutions.
BitVM represents a new approach to implementing Turing-complete smart contracts on Bitcoin without compromising its core security principles. Within the BitVM Bridge project, Bitlayer created an interface that uses NSTs, allowing complex transaction conditions to be realized on the Bitcoin network, including bridges, rollup protocols, and other DeFi solutions.
The default Bitcoin Core client doesn’t process NSTs. To overcome this limitation, Bitlayer involved leading mining pools in verifying and confirming such transactions. Thus, the pools act as operators of BitVM Bridge, ensuring the practical functionality and security of smart contracts.
Thanks to the partnership, a new economic model is emerging in which miners can earn revenue by verifying BitVM Bridge transactions, while the Bitcoin ecosystem gains the technical capability for further DeFi development.
Andy Zhou, CEO of Antpool, noted that the collaboration with Bitlayer strengthens Bitcoin’s infrastructure and opens new income streams for miners, as transaction fees become critically important amid the gradual reduction of block rewards.
The Bitcoin ecosystem continues to evolve even without complex smart contracts, particularly thanks to the Lightning Network L2 payment protocol. For example, in 2024, the largest dollar-pegged stablecoin USDT was deployed on this network, expanding Bitcoin’s blockchain use cases for various types of payments.
