Bitcoin Sidechains

[DesktopCommando]

On Etherscan there is an option to see all the different tokens (ERC20) that are associated with that blockchain.

Is there a way to see all the different sidechains that run on the Bitcoin blockchain

like Counterparty (XCP) and others ?

 

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[dkbit98]

Is there a way to see all the different sidechains that run on the Bitcoin blockchain

There is Liquid Network developed by Blockstream that acts as Bitcoin sidechain, it is mostly used for traders and exchanges and there are tokens like L-BTC, USDT and others.
Other sidechain for Bitcoin that I know is RSK that works in similar way like ethereum smart contract platform connected to BTC blockchain.
One more smaller and less known project is called Drivechain, but problem with all of them is that there is not enough volume and interest of people to use them.

[NeuroticFish]

I've found explorers, but since I'm not familiar with them, I don't really know what to look at.
For Counterparty there's https://xchain.io/ and I think that the Sends tab tells the transactions.
For Liquid there's https://blockstream.info/liquid/, but I see that the amounts are not shown ("confidential").

[vjudeu]

I don't really know what to look at.

1. The coinbase transaction.
2. OP_RETURN values.

Some chains use the former (Liquid and RSK), some use the latter (Komodo).

[DesktopCommando]

Thanks so far,

Basically I want to see what is capable of being traded on EVM networks from Bitcoin.

Currently Coval's (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1652345.0) project Emblemvault can trade Counterparty XCP Assets and NFTs, within the tokenized wallet

https://emblem.finance/nft?id=667467

https://opensea.io/assets/matic/0x8b8407c6184f1f0fd1082e83d6a3b8349caced12/667467

The Bitcoin address inside it, holds the Bitcoin assets as a normal wallet address.

https://xchain.io/address/197Qud3jrW7D7pKRjhCpuAuYcKLfuF5Ao1


So a list of known sidechains of bitcoin would be good, then I can test and see what else I can scale onto the EVM chains to see what is possible

https://desktopcommando.medium.com/trading-xcp-nfts-on-ethereum-matic-networks-87a89101fd58

[Pmalek]

For the RSK mainnet, there is this explorer accessible from the official website > https://explorer.rsk.co/. If the stats provided there are correct, there are over 48.000 active accounts on the network, and the total value of locked bitcoin is 1.189.

When looking at some random recent blocks, like these two (1 and 2), for example, we can see that each block consists of standard and internal transactions.
The total count is quite low. One block has 10 and 86. The other one 1 and 9 (transactions and internal transactions).

[ABCbits]

For Omni sidechain, you can use these explorer
https://omniexplorer.info/
https://blockchair.com/bitcoin/omni

For Liquid there's https://blockstream.info/liquid/, but I see that the amounts are not shown ("confidential").

Don't worry about "confidential" amount, that's how Liquid network works. They implement Confidential Transaction (CT) which hide amount of coin send/received. Another cryptocurrency such as Monero also use it.

[DesktopCommando]

Got in contact with Omni Layer - setup a NFT demonstration for them - https://twitter.com/DesktopCommando/status/1385204689050996744?s=20

[Theb]

I don't think Bitcoin has its own sidechain except from its one and only blockchain because other than that you have different sources in which Bitcoin is transacted like Lightning Network for example is run as off-chain transactions that is why it is not recorded in the blockchain. If we are talking about hardfork coins comming from Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash has its own blockchain. Bitcoin in the first place doesn't really have any tokens unlike Ethereum so you wouldn't really expect them to have sidechains of their own.

[pooya87]

I don't think Bitcoin has its own sidechain except from its one and only blockchain because other than that you have different sources in which Bitcoin is transacted like Lightning Network for example is run as off-chain transactions that is why it is not recorded in the blockchain. If we are talking about hardfork coins comming from Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash has its own blockchain. Bitcoin in the first place doesn't really have any tokens unlike Ethereum so you wouldn't really expect them to have sidechains of their own.

You are confusing 3 different concepts with each other: Second layer, Side chains, Tokens
1. Second layer
Second layer is a different network that is built on top of the main network and relies completely on it. For example if mainnet fails the second layer will fail also.
Example: Lightning Network

2. Side chain
Similar to second layer, side chains are also a different network but they are usually only pegged to main network not built on top of it an they don't rely on main net for security,etc. For example if mainnet fails the side chain can still keep going.
This is also why 1 LN bitcoin is 1 bitcoin but 1 sidechain bitcoin doesn't have to be 1 bitcoin. For example 1 bitcoin turns into X RSK, or 1 bitcoin could turn into 1000 wrapped bitcoin on another chain.
Example: Rootstock, all the wrapped bitcoin tokens, Blockstream's Liquid,...

Another difference between 1 and 2 is the trust. In second layer the trust is minimal while it is not true about side chains specially in case of centralized ones. Sometimes they even involve other signers (eg. liquid) so you rely on those parties too.

3. Tokens
Tokens are inside the same blockchain instead of being in another network. For example tokens built in ethereum platform are all in ethereum network not in a different one.

[Shymaa-Arafat]

I happened to pass by this previously if it is helpful...
From
https://blockgeeks.com/guides/fungible-vs-non-fungible-tokens-what-is-the-difference/
.
several projects have started issuing NFT tokens. One of those happens to be RSK.

What is RSK?
Rootstock (RSK https://www.rsk.co/) is a smart contract platform that is connected to the Bitcoin blockchain through sidechain technology. Rootstock was born to be compatible with Ethereum’s applications (the web3/EVM/Solidity model) . The idea behind the creation of RSK was to give the Bitcoin blockchain smart contract functionalities. At its very core, Rootstock is a combination of:

A Turing-complete resource-accounted deterministic virtual machine (for smart contracts) compatible with Ethereum’s EVM.
A two-way pegged Bitcoin sidechain (for BTC denominated trade) based on a strong federation.
A SHA256D merge-mining consensus protocol (for consensus security relying on Bitcoin’s miners) with 30-seconds block interval. (for fast payments).
RSK: NFT Use Cases
Its partnership with Watafan can perfectly describe RSK’s advances in the field of non-fungible tokens.

Watafan will allow celebrities to create their own digital trading cards, aka watacards.

Celebrities can give away the watacards to their fans as a gift or autograph.
They can use their personal wallet to sign these cards cryptographically.
Smart contracts protect the intellectual property of the idols.
Every time fans trade watacards in the secondary market among each other. The concerned celebrity will receive a chunk of the shares.
Watafan aims to propel the digital property to the next level by leveraging smart contracts. Watafan idols can secure their copyright and digital identity with RSK smart contracts.
Long-term, watacards will cement themselves as a new kind of asset that can help preserve the intellectual copyrights of artists, athletes, musicians, actors, and others.
How to build an RSK NFT?
Here´s a good resource to get started coding your non-fungible token and a video with step-by-step instructions to create your own collectable token on RSK´s network.

[OgNasty]

I don't think Bitcoin has its own sidechain except from its one and only blockchain because other than that you have different sources in which Bitcoin is transacted like Lightning Network for example is run as off-chain transactions that is why it is not recorded in the blockchain. If we are talking about hardfork coins comming from Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash has its own blockchain. Bitcoin in the first place doesn't really have any tokens unlike Ethereum so you wouldn't really expect them to have sidechains of their own.

You are confusing 3 different concepts with each other: Second layer, Side chains, Tokens
1. Second layer
Second layer is a different network that is built on top of the main network and relies completely on it. For example if mainnet fails the second layer will fail also.
Example: Lightning Network

2. Side chain
Similar to second layer, side chains are also a different network but they are usually only pegged to main network not built on top of it an they don't rely on main net for security,etc. For example if mainnet fails the side chain can still keep going.
This is also why 1 LN bitcoin is 1 bitcoin but 1 sidechain bitcoin doesn't have to be 1 bitcoin. For example 1 bitcoin turns into X RSK, or 1 bitcoin could turn into 1000 wrapped bitcoin on another chain.
Example: Rootstock, all the wrapped bitcoin tokens, Blockstream's Liquid,...

Another difference between 1 and 2 is the trust. In second layer the trust is minimal while it is not true about second layer specially in case of centralized ones. Sometimes they even involve other signers (eg. liquid) so you rely on those parties too.

3. Tokens
Tokens are inside the same blockchain instead of being in another network. For example tokens built in ethereum platform are all in ethereum network not in a different one.

Nice definitions.  I'm curious if you would consider a merge mined coin like Namecoin to be a side chain, or if you would just consider it a separate merged mining chain category?  I'm also curious about the reasons why merge mined coins seemed to never reach the popularity of side chains as described above and certainly not the valuation. 

[pooya87]

Nice definitions.  I'm curious if you would consider a merge mined coin like Namecoin to be a side chain, or if you would just consider it a separate merged mining chain category?

A separate category is more suitable for merge mined coins than just categorizing them under side-chains because of the following differences:

• A merge mined coin doesn't have any transaction in bitcoin blockchain, just a small hash that it uses for its mining in bitcoin's block's coinbase. A side-chain on the other hand has to have transactions in bitcoin blockchain to "peg-in" and "peg-out", it basically "converts" bitcoin to the side-chain coin.
• A merge mined coin can be mined individually too without the merge mining in bitcoin. So if bitcoin stopped today, or if you wanted to mine it without mining bitcoin you can still continue mining the merge mined coin regularly since the merge mined coin nodes don't care what the additional data used in their PoW (AuxPOW) is. Even though a side chain can also operate without bitcoin, it has to make changes to its protocol to be able to do that. That means if bitcoin stopped today the side-chain won't die but will keep going but with a fixed supply equal to the last total pegged-in value without being able to increase/decrease it further.
  
  

  I'm also curious about the reasons why merge mined coins seemed to never reach the popularity of side chains as described above and certainly not the valuation. 
  

  It is hard to know this without extensive study, but it comes down to the same reason why most altcoins aren't popular which is lack of interesting utility that has an overwhelming demand in real world.

[casperBGD]

for RSK, it is an Ethereum-copy chain, that is connected to BTC blockchain, in a manner that transactions are filed on BTC blockchain periodically, and yeah, it could work without BTC network as well, seems that connection to BTC is for marketing purposes mainly (basically, it would die-off without BTC, since there will be no users at all, but technically could function)

I am using Sovryn, that is based on RSK, and could say that there is liquidity on the network, but usage is far from what can be seen on other DeFi chains, as of now, I am not sure that there are other projects built on RSK/RIF infrastructure that are worth mentioning

one important thing to mention, if you want to try Sovryn, is not to use MetaMask wallet, they recommend other wallet, presumable Liquality due to capital letters issue with MetaMask
nevertheless, chain function almost the same as Ethereum, just transaction costs are much lower, due to no congestion on the network

[pooya87]

for RSK, it is an Ethereum-copy chain, that is connected to BTC blockchain, in a manner that transactions are filed on BTC blockchain periodically, and yeah, it could work without BTC network as well, seems that connection to BTC is for marketing purposes mainly (basically, it would die-off without BTC, since there will be no users at all, but technically could function)

The problem is not with RSK, the problem is with the fact that there is no real world application for smart contracts that the smart contract platforms (including the most hyped pumped ones like ETH) offer. So far out of tens of thousands of tokens we have seen not even a single one were useful.
People nowadays are creating tokens to make money and they can make money if they do it on a most hyped up way so that it attracts more suckers. The choice is obviously ethereum for such schemes even though it is the worst platform to use.