The Bitcoin Blockstream Development Firm has presented “Simplicity”, a programming language for smart contracts based on the layer of layer 2.
Co -founded by the cryptographer and early collaborator of Bitcoin Dr. Adam Back, Blockstream has introduced simplicity with the aim of resolving Bitcoin’s limitations as a place for intelligent contracts.
“Simplicity gives Bitcoin Expressive Smart Contracting Power, but without the security problems associated with VM -based chains,” he said Thursday in an announcement sent by email. “It is built from scratch to be formally specified, safe and efficient.”
The impulse for Bitcoin’s native programability has gained impulse in recent years, especially since the introduction of Bitvm in 2023, a framework that explored how complex calculations could be verified in Bitcoin without altering the base protocol.
The origins of Simplicity are in fact prior to Bitvm, having been conceptualized by Blockstream Dr. Russell O’Connor research in 2012. It is designed to allow smart contracts to avoid some of the characteristics as unlimited loops that can lead to vulnerabilities and exploits in networks such as Ethereum.
Instead, Simplicity uses the UTXO of Bitcoin model, for which tokens function as digital cash and users spend specific currencies, instead of updating account balances.
Simplicity is now live on the Liquid Network, a Bitcoin layer 2 with more than $ 3 billion in total blocked value (TVL), which allows developers to build many of the common applications in blocks of intelligent contracts enabled by contracts, such as programmable vaults, decentralized exchanges, custody services and governance protocols, using bitcoin as the liquidation layer.
