Guest: GOAT Network
Interview: momo, ChainCatcher
After multiple rounds of market discussions and rational thinking, Bitcoin Layer 2 may be transitioning from a "conceptual narrative" to an "engineering turning point".
Recently, the Bitcoin Layer 2 network GOAT Network launched the GOAT BitVM2 testnet, which is the first BitVM2 testnet in the entire network.
On the basis of inheriting the advantages of the original BitVM2 protocol, GOAT Network has proposed multiple innovations, systematically solving key issues in security, challenge mechanisms, and economic incentives, laying the foundation for Bitcoin ecosystem's scalability and programmability.
One key breakthrough is that GOAT Network has reduced the challenge period, which affects computational efficiency and coordination costs, from 14 days to 1 day, significantly improving capital utilization and user experience.
Stephen Duan, a core contributor to GOAT Network, stated that after Ethereum L2 truly ran through the Optimistic Rollup model, it experienced a breakthrough, and Bitcoin also needs its own "OP moment". The launch of the GOAT BitVM2 testnet means that Bitcoin zk-rollup is being practically implemented for the first time, and Bitcoin's "OP moment" is about to begin.
In a recent interview with ChainCatcher, the GOAT Network team shared detailed insights into their technological breakthroughs, ecosystem layout, and long-term vision.
GOAT stated that in addition to further optimizing the GOAT BitVM2 solution, they are also actively following other promising Bitcoin zk-rollup solutions and exploring BTCFi products that meet different risk preferences to enrich the on-chain ecosystem. GOAT Network will gradually move from a core infrastructure in the Bitcoin ecosystem to the liquidity center of blockchain.
In terms of ZKP efficiency breakthrough, zkMIPS can achieve real-time ZKP generation for GOAT, ensuring that the Operator can immediately initiate the reimbursement process after each withdrawal trigger.
After entering the reimbursement stage, based on the multi-round randomized challenge model, a random Challenger is selected for the challenge.
After a limited number of challenges, such as 3-5 rounds, there is an extremely high probability of ensuring an honest challenger appears. Each round can be completed in 1-2 hours, and the entire process can generally be completed within a day.
If someone initiates a challenge, the subsequent stage involves the Operator revealing the calculation process, and the challenger disproving the calculation errors. This stage also requires 30-90 minutes to complete.
Since the Operator is self-reimbursing, the Operator remains online, which ensures the smoothness and timeliness of the entire process.
6, ChainCatcher: What improvements have been made to the incentive mechanism?
Stephen Duan: In terms of the incentive mechanism, the core innovation of GOAT Network is to unify roles such as Sequencer, Challenger, Operator, and Committee members into a single identity - Universal Operator, and through a role rotation mechanism, allowing all participants to take turns assuming different responsibilities at different times. All operators need to stake on L2, and will be assigned to specific roles each round.
In this model, GOAT Network can ensure that operator earnings balance costs, incentivizing operators to participate honestly in any role; additionally, it lowers the participation threshold, allowing small and medium nodes to easily participate without continuously bearing high-cost roles, thereby enhancing system decentralization and openness. It also enhances system resilience, ensuring the system can continue running through flexible role allocation even if individual operators go offline, avoiding dependence on a single point.
7, ChainCatcher: What security issues currently exist in Bitcoin Layer 2?
Stephen Duan: Security issues can be broken down into three aspects:
First, the liveness of L2. In simple terms, liveness refers to whether the L2 system can continue to run normally without being paralyzed due to node failures or malicious behavior.
Second, the verifiability of L2 computation and data. If the L2 computation results are not trustworthy or cannot be verified on BTC, users may face risks of fund tampering or double spend attacks.
Third, effectiveness. If system efficiency is low, user experience is poor, or the incentive mechanism is poorly designed, nodes may not participate, and the system cannot be maintained long-term.
(Translation continues in the same manner for the rest of the text)Moreover, some project parties, in order to quickly increase TVL data, have cooperated with various BTC and BTC LST protocols, but these short-term strategies have instead formed hidden liabilities. When these projects urgently need to hedge debt risks through interest-generating channels and airdrop collaboration mechanisms.
Besides these B-end players, some ordinary BTC holders also have BTCFi needs. For example, some DeFi players hold a lot of BTC or wrapped BTC and have been doing DeFi mining. They won't easily sell their held BTC and are looking for a safe and guaranteed new mining method.
Additionally, some "10U" warriors with very little BTC are hoping to leverage small investments into big gains, and newcomers who know nothing about wallets or seed phrases, seeing Bitcoin's high price, also want to purchase but don't know where to buy?
These are real demands, but from the data, approximately 90% of BTC is currently idle. Although solving these needs is not an overnight task, I believe in this world, there are only unexplored demands, not unsolvable demands.
12, ChainCatcher: What are the main challenges the industry currently faces in addressing various real needs of BTCFi?
Stephen Duan: Although challenges have been encountered, it doesn't mean the BTCFi track is impassable.
Besides the native BTC security mentioned earlier, the real challenge of BTCFi is the economic model, which needs to consider how to establish the source and sustainability of native BTC returns?
We believe that L2 built on the foundation of native BTC security is the starting point for sustainable BTCFi development. By combining ZK Rollup bridge, BTC can be safely and efficiently introduced to the second layer for economic activities. The revenue generated by second-layer transactions (such as gas fees) should be partially returned to BTC holders as compensation for providing liquidity and security.
If the second-layer gas fees are denominated in BTC, this constitutes an extremely pure "native BTC returns" model. Before this, BTC had almost no truly native return scenarios, except for funding rates in CeFi.
Babylon's model is essentially harvesting third-party Tokens, which is neither native nor sustainable. Furthermore, to achieve continuous returns, the operational costs of L2 must be effectively controlled.
In ZK Rollup solutions, roles such as Sequencer, Prover, Challenger, Operator, and Committee each undertake different responsibilities with different revenue structures. How to control overall costs while ensuring the incentive mechanism will determine the sustainable operational capability of L2. As we discussed earlier, GOAT BitVM2's incentive mechanism innovation, GOAT Network built a powerful economic system based on universal operator rotation, ensuring that roles like sequencers, provers, challengers, and publishers are fairly distributed among all stakers. Through transaction fee sharing, fraud bounties, and penalty mechanisms, the protocol encourages honest behavior while economically punishing malicious actions, thus creating a sustainable, fair, and resilient decentralized ecosystem.
Committed to Becoming the Blockchain Liquidity Center
13, ChainCatcher: Last month, GOAT Network launched its Alpha mainnet. How is the current Alpha mainnet performance? Can you share some data or use case performance?
Stephen Duan: Currently, the Alpha mainnet has stably passed 3 upgrades, with wallet numbers breaking 700,000 and nearly 3.4 million transactions processed.
The community is also growing steadily. The Happy Birthday NFT series launched in April, with a total of 2,000 pieces, sold out immediately with floor prices tripling, and the Odyssey activity with OKX Wallet has already begun.
14, ChainCatcher: What is GOAT Network's next technical or product roadmap? Are there long-term plans for Bitcoin ecosystem expansion and cross-chain interoperability (such as with Ethereum and Solana)?
Stephen Duan: Further optimize GOAT BitVM2 to improve the efficiency and security of optimistic challenges. Additionally, we are actively tracking other possible BTC zk Rollup solutions. For example, after supporting OP_CAT, we can directly use BTC scripts to verify STARK Proof, which can transform the current optimistic challenge process into immediate verification.
In terms of cross-chain interoperability. Blockchain interoperability is usually achieved through "Trusted Bridges", which rely on an independent centralized or partially decentralized intermediary to verify and transmit cross-chain messages. We are exploring Entangled Rollup, a cross-chain interoperability solution that doesn't require cross-chain bridges, which not only supports interoperability and asset transfer but can also empower rich multi-chain applications and protocols to fully utilize underlying infrastructure and ecosystem resources.
15, ChainCatcher: Bitcoin Layer 2 experienced market hype last year before cooling down. How do you view the next outbreak cycle of Bitcoin Layer 2? During this phase, what key points do you think a Bitcoin Layer 2 project needs to do to have long-term competitiveness?
Stephen Duan: The core is to build a healthy BTCFi ecosystem. Technically, we will continue to promote ongoing optimization of current GOAT BitVM2, zkMIPS, and De Seq; in terms of economic model, we will ensure a healthy and sustainable incentive mode for Universal Operator.
Despite investors generally being cautious, we remain firmly bullish on Bitcoin Layer 2 and BTCFi, believing that the BTCFi era is far from over and the future is promising.
16, ChainCatcher: What is GOAT Network's long-term vision?
Stephen Duan: GOAT Network's vision is divided into two stages. The first stage is to become a core infrastructure in the Bitcoin ecosystem, providing sustainable and secure BTC returns for BTC holders through native Bitcoin ZK-Rollup technology and decentralized Sequencer, and promoting comprehensive implementation and development of BTCFi.
The second stage, based on zkVM infrastructure, is to unify the fragmented consensus and dispersed liquidity across different chains, with GOAT Network building Entangled Rollup to become the blockchain liquidity center.
