Aligning Mining Operations With Bitcoin’s Evolution
Bitlayer, a Bitcoin layer two (L2) solution, has announced key partnerships with three major bitcoin mining pools to advance the real-world implementation of the Bitcoin Virtual Machine (BitVM), particularly for the BitVM Bridge. The mining pools—Antpool, F2pool, and Spiderpool—collectively account for more than 36.2% of Bitcoin’s hashrate.
According to a statement, the goal of BitVM is to bring Turing-complete smart contracts and onchain validation to Bitcoin without altering its core security. Aligning mining operations with Bitcoin’s evolution could create new economic models and unlock new use cases, including bridges and rollups. Kevin He, co-founder of Bitlayer, emphasized the significance of the collaboration:
BitVM represents the most credible path to bring onchain validation functionality to Bitcoin while maintaining its core security guarantees. BitVM will enable Turing-complete smart contract execution on Bitcoin, empowering various use cases such as the BitVM Bridge, Bitcoin Rollups, and Bitcoin protocols. This partnership solves the critical last-mile challenge of Non-Standard Transaction (NST) inclusion through strategic mining pool partnerships.
NSTs play a crucial role in BitVM bridge challenge paths; however, they are not natively supported by the default Bitcoin Core client. To overcome this challenge, Bitlayer is collaborating with mempools to create a network interface that accepts Non-Standard Transactions (NSTs) and ensures their onchain confirmation. This allows anyone to submit NSTs reliably, strengthening the security of the BitVM bridge.
Andy, CEO of Antpool, noted that the partnership would support Bitcoin innovation while protecting miners’ interests. He explained that Bitlayer will drive network activity and transaction fees, which are crucial for sustainable miner income as block rewards decrease.
“By backing Bitlayer, Antpool is helping strengthen Bitcoin’s infrastructure, expand its utility, and ensure long-term value creation for the mining community,” Andy stated.
Leon Liang, Chief Strategy Officer of F2Ppool, reinforced the importance of innovation: “F2pool’s top priority is the security of the Bitcoin network, but we also want to embrace innovation by supporting high-quality BitVM projects like Bitlayer.” Kenway, CTO of Spiderpool, expressed enthusiasm for the collaboration:
“This partnership aligns seamlessly with our vision by integrating Spiderpool’s mining expertise with Bitlayer’s advanced BitVM Bridge. Bitcoin DeFi has historically been limited by the main chain’s scalability constraints, but Bitlayer’s BitVM-based scaling solutions address this by enabling faster, low-cost transactions while preserving Bitcoin’s security.”
Beyond enhancing Bitcoin’s functionality as a financial services platform, Kenway believes the partnership reinforces the critical role miners play in powering DeFi.
