Bitcoin Forum

Alexei Zamyatin, the Co-Founder of Interlay, discusses on the Citizen Cosmos Podcast about a modular, programmable layer between Bitcoin and the multi-chain ecosystem that unlocks novel decentralized use cases for BTC. Interlay utilizes an already operational, decentralized bridge to connect Bitcoin with a lending protocol and AMM decentralized exchange, enabling Bitcoin holders to access basic financial services without relying on centralized exchanges.

A progressive conversation that is worth a listen for anyone curious about future use cases for BTC.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anK4shpKDKY (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anK4shpKDKY)

I don't think I have time to listen to such a 1hr lengthy podcast you just shared above @ O.P. But since it's presumably that you may have listened to this, and know how useful it is likely to be among Bitcoin community. Why not you go about to summarize how Interlay was able to utilize an already operational, decentralized bridge to connect Bitcoin with a lending protocol to enable Bitcoin holders to access basic financial services? As I'm sure this community will be very grateful to learn something new from a newbie today.

I think we all know how the lending protocol and AMM decentralized exchange will end up and how the unlocks novel decentralized use cases for BTC are in the end a central bridge with one server that once hacked (it may be an inside job) or Validator flaws will lead to the loss of millions of dollars.
Also, the resulting currency is altcoin, not Bitcoin, and these bridges do not represent an evolution of Bitcoin as much as they are a new opportunity to make developers rich.

These are some examples I found with a quick search for bridge hacks from 2022:

• Nomad Bridge hack
• ‍Harmony Horizon Bridge hack
• "Axie" weakness in Ronin Bridge

You should stay away from these bridges.

All these you've said is just a diversion and you're also not going straight to the main aspect of discussion on this, the summary of what i can derive is that you're trying to bring up a discussion already made from those involved on the clip you showed and how they can issue bitcoin as loan to others in need of such service and it has to be well explained that this is not a bitcoin supported plan that comes along with it acquirement, it's rather a role some centralized institutions took a decision to offer on their own and not coming from the bitcoin network.

If it is just a layer that chain or send hashed data to the Bitcoin blockchain, I don't think it is a progressive thing. Not to mention there are tons of alternatives for people who are looking for decentralized exchange, financing, and so on. If I'm not wrong, projects that focus on lending with BTC also exist without touching BTC at all.

Maybe this is too early to judge, but I feel like this will just end up as one of those things that gets forgotten with time.

By multichain, you already have many Wrapped Bitcoin tokens but remember they are altcoin tokens, not bitcoin.

By multichain, you will need to use cryptocurrency bridges that are known as favorite targets by hackers.

Bitcoin, Proof of Work, blockchain is strong, decentralized and you will be safe by using Bitcoin blockchain. It is hard and not beneficial to do 51% attacks on Bitcoin network. In contrast, it is unsafe to use cryptocurrency bridges.

How many confirmations are equivalent* to 6 Bitcoin confirmations? (https://howmanyconfs.com/)
How many Bitcoin confirmations is enough? (https://blog.lopp.net/how-many-bitcoin-confirmations-is-enough/)

My apologies, I didn't listen to the podcast either. If I did, I might not be able to understand much of it anyway. But with how you present it, notwithstanding the emphasis on the word decentralized, it looks centralized. We've been there, done that. I don't know, but despite highlighting decentralization-- "decentralized use cases", "decentralized bridge", "decentralized exchange"-- it sounds to me exactly like those that came to the market before carrying the same label at the same time maintaining a single point of failure. This sounds like the decentralized finance and decentralized bridges that pestered the market heavily in the past, from which billions and billions were stolen. I hope I'm wrong.

This is also what crossed my mind when I read the subject and the post of the OP. "New Centralized" use case? what is that? Bitcoin is already good with it's centralized scheme already, no middle man in between, you control the fees you wait and that's it.

I don't think we need another later of like decentralized bridge as it makes bitcoin and blockchain more complicated to newbies. And just remember that the design was to used it as a payment method in the first place.

I hope I don't understand wrongly about decentralized finance platforms (DeFi) but in my perspective, they are centralized platforms, not decentralized. Need an example, yes, let's see the Curve finance and Sushi projects had drama in the last bull run. With centralized power on their founders, co-founders, developer team, their projects are actually centralized and shit can happen anytime when those powerful people want to make scam exit, their devices, accounts are compromised.

I hope I am wrong but I don't see how they can be decentralized like Bitcoin.

I remember the Ronin bridge was hacked because some of their co-signers' keys were breached. Is Ronin Bridge decentralized when they have only some people who are responsible for signing transactions?

The Ronin Bridge hack (https://www.elliptic.co/blog/540-million-stolen-from-the-ronin-defi-bridge)

From the point of view of many, decentralization means either that the platform does not request your data, or that you directly connect your wallet to exchange without sending it to a deposit address, or that the network is managed by a limited group of signatories (often belonging to the same entity). All of these models are not decentralized networks. We can say that some of them are Distributed or does not guarantee a single point of failure, but it is not decentralized because a specific group can cancel, reverse, or even delete transactions if they want to, and they disable the blockchain if something goes wrong or return tokens when they are hacked.


I do not think that Curve finance and Sushi are even distributed. The number of signatories is limited and may not exceed 20

I don't understand the meaning of 'Distributed' in this context!

Thanks for your input but I know altcoin blockchains, bridges, decentralized exchanges like DeFi are not actually decentralized. Because they are centralized in some hands and with DeFi exchanges, you need liquidity pools that can be rug pulled by developers anytime.

Their blockchains can be halted like Binance Smart Chain, Harmony chain. Their blockchains can be rolled back if their founders and developers want to do that.

Their tokens can be minted with mint function without limit like LUNA in May 2022 which killed many people wanted to catch the falling knife.