Accessibility Statement Skip Navigation
  • Resources
  • Blog
  • Journalists
  • +44 (0)20 7454 5110
  • Client Login
  • Send a Release
Return to PR Newswire homepage
  • News
  • Products
  • Contact
When typing in this field, a list of search results will appear and be automatically updated as you type.

Searching for your content...

No results found. Please change your search terms and try again.
  • News in Focus
      • Browse News Releases

      • All Public Company News
      • All Multimedia News
      • View All News Releases

      • Regulatory News

      • D/A/CH Regulatory News
      • UK Regulatory News
      • View All Regulatory News

  • Business & Money
      • Auto & Transportation

      • Aerospace & Defense
      • Air Freight
      • Airlines & Aviation
      • Automotive
      • Maritime & Shipbuilding
      • Railroads & Intermodal Transportation
      • Supply Chain/Logistics
      • Transportation, Trucking & Railroad
      • Travel
      • Trucking & Road Transportation
      • View All Auto & Transportation

      • Business Technology

      • Blockchain
      • Broadcast Tech
      • Computer & Electronics
      • Computer Hardware
      • Computer Software
      • Data Analytics
      • Electronic Commerce
      • Electronic Components
      • Electronic Design Automation
      • Financial Technology
      • High Tech Security
      • Internet Technology
      • Nanotechnology
      • Networks
      • Peripherals
      • Semiconductors
      • View All Business Technology

      • Entertain­ment & Media

      • Advertising
      • Art
      • Books
      • Entertainment
      • Film & Motion Picture
      • Magazines
      • Music
      • Publishing & Information Services
      • Radio & Podcast
      • Television
      • View All Entertain­ment & Media

      • Financial Services & Investing

      • Accounting News & Issues
      • Acquisitions, Mergers & Takeovers
      • Banking & Financial Services
      • Bankruptcy
      • Bond & Stock Ratings
      • Conference Call Announcements
      • Contracts
      • Cryptocurrency
      • Dividends
      • Earnings
      • Earnings Forecasts & Projections
      • Financing Agreements
      • Insurance
      • Investments Opinions
      • Joint Ventures
      • Mutual Funds
      • Private Placement
      • Real Estate
      • Restructuring & Recapitalisation
      • Sales Reports
      • Shareholder Activism
      • Shareholder Meetings
      • Stock Offering
      • Stock Split
      • Venture Capital
      • View All Financial Services & Investing

      • General Business

      • Awards
      • Commercial Real Estate
      • Corporate Expansion
      • Earnings
      • Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG)
      • Human Resource & Workforce Management
      • Licensing
      • New Products & Services
      • Obituaries
      • Outsourcing Businesses
      • Overseas Real Estate (non-US)
      • Personnel Announcements
      • Real Estate Transactions
      • Residential Real Estate
      • Small Business Services
      • Socially Responsible Investing
      • Surveys, Polls & Research
      • Trade Show News
      • View All General Business

  • Science & Tech
      • Consumer Technology

      • Artificial Intelligence
      • Blockchain
      • Cloud Computing/Internet of Things
      • Computer Electronics
      • Computer Hardware
      • Computer Software
      • Consumer Electronics
      • Cryptocurrency
      • Data Analytics
      • Electronic Commerce
      • Electronic Gaming
      • Financial Technology
      • Mobile Entertainment
      • Multimedia & Internet
      • Peripherals
      • Social Media
      • STEM (Science, Tech, Engineering, Math)
      • Supply Chain/Logistics
      • Wireless Communications
      • View All Consumer Technology

      • Energy & Natural Resources

      • Alternative Energies
      • Chemical
      • Electrical Utilities
      • Gas
      • General Manufacturing
      • Mining
      • Mining & Metals
      • Oil & Energy
      • Oil & Gas Discoveries
      • Utilities
      • Water Utilities
      • View All Energy & Natural Resources

      • Environ­ment

      • Conservation & Recycling
      • Environmental Issues
      • Environmental Policy
      • Environmental Products & Services
      • Green Technology
      • Natural Disasters
      • View All Environ­ment

      • Heavy Industry & Manufacturing

      • Aerospace & Defence
      • Agriculture
      • Chemical
      • Construction & Building
      • General Manufacturing
      • HVAC (Heating, Ventilation & Air-Conditioning)
      • Machinery
      • Machine Tools, Metalworking & Metallurgy
      • Mining
      • Mining & Metals
      • Paper, Forest Products & Containers
      • Precious Metals
      • Textiles
      • Tobacco
      • View All Heavy Industry & Manufacturing

      • Telecomm­unications

      • Carriers & Services
      • Mobile Entertainment
      • Networks
      • Peripherals
      • Telecommunications Equipment
      • Telecommunications Industry
      • VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol)
      • Wireless Communications
      • View All Telecomm­unications

  • Lifestyle & Health
      • Consumer Products & Retail

      • Animals & Pets
      • Beers, Wines & Spirits
      • Beverages
      • Bridal Services
      • Cannabis
      • Cosmetics & Personal Care
      • Fashion
      • Food & Beverages
      • Furniture & Furnishings
      • Home Improvement
      • Household, Consumer & Cosmetics
      • Household Products
      • Jewellery
      • Non-Alcoholic Beverages
      • Office Products
      • Organic Food
      • Product Recalls
      • Restaurants
      • Retail
      • Supermarkets
      • Toys
      • View All Consumer Products & Retail

      • Entertain­ment & Media

      • Advertising
      • Art
      • Books
      • Entertainment
      • Film & Motion Picture
      • Magazines
      • Music
      • Publishing & Information Services
      • Radio & Podcast
      • Television
      • View All Entertain­ment & Media

      • Health

      • Biometrics
      • Biotechnology
      • Clinical Trials & Medical Discoveries
      • Dentistry
      • FDA Approval
      • Fitness/Wellness
      • Health Care & Hospitals
      • Health Insurance
      • Infection Control
      • International Medical Approval
      • Medical Equipment
      • Medical Pharmaceuticals
      • Mental Health
      • Pharmaceuticals
      • Supplementary Medicine
      • View All Health

      • Sports

      • General Sports
      • Outdoors, Camping & Hiking
      • Sporting Events
      • Sports Equipment & Accessories
      • View All Sports

      • Travel

      • Amusement Parks & Tourist Attractions
      • Gambling & Casinos
      • Hotels & Resorts
      • Leisure & Tourism
      • Outdoors, Camping & Hiking
      • Passenger Aviation
      • Travel Industry
      • View All Travel

  • Policy & Public Interest
      • Policy & Public Interest

      • Animal Welfare
      • Corporate Social Responsibility
      • Economic News, Trends & Analysis
      • Education
      • Environmental
      • European Government
      • Labour & Union
      • Natural Disasters
      • Not For Profit
      • Public Safety
      • View All Policy & Public Interest

  • People & Culture
      • People & Culture

      • Aboriginal, First Nations & Native American
      • African American
      • Asian American
      • Children
      • Diversity, Equity & Inclusion
      • Hispanic
      • Lesbian, Gay & Bisexual
      • Men's Interest
      • People with Disabilities
      • Religion
      • Senior Citizens
      • Veterans
      • Women
      • View All People & Culture

  • Overview
  • Distribution
  • Paid Placement
  • Multimedia
  • Disclosure Services
  • SocialBoost
  • Rooms
    • MediaRoom
    • ESG Rooms
  • AI Tools
  • General Enquiries
  • Media Enquiries
  • Partnerships
  • Hamburger menu
  • Cision PR Newswire UK provides press release distribution, targeting, monitoring, and marketing services
  • Send a Release
    • Phone

    • +44 (0)20 7454 5110 from 8 AM - 5:30 PM GMT

    • ALL CONTACT INFO
    • Contact Us

      +44 (0)20 7454 5110
      from 8 AM - 5:30 PM GMT

  • Client Login
  • Send a Release
  • Resources
  • Blog
  • Journalists
  • News in Focus
    • Browse News Releases
    • Regulatory News
  • Business & Money
    • Auto & Transportation
    • Business Technology
    • Entertain­ment & Media
    • Financial Services & Investing
    • General Business
  • Science & Tech
    • Consumer Technology
    • Energy & Natural Resources
    • Environ­ment
    • Heavy Industry & Manufacturing
    • Telecomm­unications
  • Lifestyle & Health
    • Consumer Products & Retail
    • Entertain­ment & Media
    • Health
    • Sports
    • Travel
  • Policy & Public Interest
    • Policy & Public Interest
  • People & Culture
    • People & Culture
  • Client Login
  • Send a Release
  • Resources
  • Blog
  • Journalists
  • Overview
  • Distribution
  • Paid Placement
  • Multimedia
  • Disclosure Services
  • Cision Communications Cloud®
  • AI Tools
  • Client Login
  • Send a Release
  • Resources
  • Blog
  • Journalists
  • General Enquiries
  • Media Enquiries
  • Partnerships
  • Client Login
  • Send a Release
  • Resources
  • Blog
  • Journalists

The Internet Computer Brings Smart Contract Functionality to Bitcoin


News provided by

DFINITY Foundation

05 Dec, 2022, 13:00 GMT

Share this article

Share toX

Share this article

Share toX

The Internet Computer's (IC) landmark Bitcoin Integration combines the liquidity of Bitcoin with the programming capabilities of the IC's smart contracts

ZURICH and SAN FRANCISCO, Dec. 5, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The DFINITY Foundation, the not-for-profit organization contributing to the development of the Internet Computer (IC) — the world's first web-speed, internet-scale public blockchain — has today announced the Internet Computer's mainnet integration with Bitcoin, bringing advanced smart contract functionality to the world's largest cryptocurrency. The Internet Computer can now serve as a Layer 2 for Bitcoin where smart contracts on the Internet Computer can hold, send and receive Bitcoin natively, without the need for blockchain bridges or other third parties. This provides a trustless foundation for various DeFi and Web3 applications seeking to code Bitcoin.

Manu Drijvers, Director of Engineering at the DFINITY Foundation, explains: "Blockchains are like walled gardens, incapable of interaction between one another. When this comes to Bitcoin, applications, such as DeFi applications, that could benefit most from interacting with the world's largest cryptocurrency do not have the ability to do so. The Internet Computer's integration with Bitcoin is a true game-changer for the industry, finally bringing smart contract functionality to Bitcoin and enabling a whole new landscape of DeFi and dapp development never before possible using BTC. We are incredibly excited to see how developers interact with this revolutionary functionality."

Now, the world's most popular cryptocurrency can be used for DeFi activities like yield farming, lending, payments and more. This is achieved through the Internet Computer's enhanced Chain-key cryptography. The direct integration with Bitcoin obliviates bridged and wrapped Bitcoin, a technique typically used to facilitate interaction between different blockchains, and one that is error prone and often hacked. To enable fast Bitcoin transactions between smart contracts on the Internet Computer, the DFINITY foundation is currently working on Chain-Key Bitcoin (ckBTC). Here, ckBTC will act as a local ledger facilitating fast transactions with low fees and only settle transactions on the Bitcoin network when necessary.

The Internet Computer's integration with Bitcoin also provides a more secure alternative to centralized bridges in the form of threshold ECDSA (Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm). The implementation of ECDSA empowers the Internet Computer's canister smart contracts, to directly conduct Bitcoin transactions without an intermediary or bridge. This provides a trustless foundation for DeFi projects using Bitcoin and enables IC developers to code natively on Bitcoin.

Jan Camenisch, Chief Technology Officer at the DFINITY Foundation, said: "Making Bitcoin programmable will increase the overall potential of blockchain technology. Unlocking Bitcoin's unmatched liquidity will bring enormous benefits and new possibilities for users and developers across a wide range dapps including DeFi, GameFi, SocialFi, and NFTs. This direct integration also eliminates the Achilles' heel of other approaches to make Bitcoin available on other networks such as wrapping and bridging. Unfortunately, we have seen the drawbacks of these solutions over the past year through a number of high-profile hacks, leaving networks hopelessly vulnerable to attacks. Bitcoin lending via decentralized exchanges, for example, is now possible with security superior to what is available on any other platform thanks to the Internet Computer's direct and trustless integration, making it a natural choice for DeFi developers."

The ICP developer community has long expressed a strong demand for this feature. DEX projects such as Helix or IC Lighthouse are already building on the Bitcoin and Chain-Key signing features to offer bridgeless inter-chain token swaps. A few ecosystem dapps are also ready to launch some creative use cases beyond DeFi. Among them, crowdfunding platform – CrowdfunNFT – will accept funding for projects in BTC. This will expand the crowdfunding market overall, and bring in a fresh set of project backers from the crypto world. Other examples of interesting use-cases in development are transactions in BTC on NFT marketplaces and peer-to-peer transfer of BTC directly on social media and instant messaging dapps. The programmability of Bitcoin will open many more unique and imaginative use-cases in the future.

About the Internet Computer

The Internet Computer is the world's first web-speed, internet-scale public blockchain, developed by the DFINITY Foundation.

The Internet Computer overcomes the limitations of traditional blockchains and smart contracts for better speed, storage costs, security, and scalability, offering Web2 performance on an infinite Web3 platform. As a 100% trustless network, the Internet Computer is the only public blockchain in the world that offers end-to-end decentralization and uses no centralized cloud nodes. Furthering its decentralization, the Internet Computer is governed by the Network Nervous System (NNS), a protocol-integrated DAO where token holders have the power to vote on the future of the network.

The Internet Computer mainnet was launched in May 2021, following years of strategic research and development, by a team of more than 200 world-renowned cryptographers, distributed systems engineers, and programming language experts at the DFINITY Foundation.

https://internetcomputer.org/

About the DFINITY Foundation

The DFINITY Foundation is the not-for-profit developing the Internet Computer — the world's first web-speed, internet-scale public blockchain. DFINITY currently operates research centers in Zurich and California, and remote teams in locations all over the world. It has a global team of more than 200 people, which includes numerous famous computer science researchers, engineers and cryptographers. It runs the largest R&D operation in the crypto industry.

https://dfinity.org/

Twitter Reddit YouTube GitHub Developer Center

Media Contacts

For more information and the press kit, visit https://dfinity.org/media/ 

Modal title

Contact PR Newswire

  • +44 (0)20 7454 5110
    from 8 AM - 5:30 PM GMT
  • General Enquiries
  • Media Enquiries
  • Partnerships

Products

  • Content Distribution
  • Multimedia Services
  • Disclosure Services
  • Cision Communications Cloud®

About

  • About PR Newswire
  • About Cision
  • Partnering Opportunities
  • Careers
  • APAC
  • APAC - Simplified Chinese
  • APAC - Traditional Chinese
  • Brazil
  • Canada
  • Czech
  • Denmark
  • Finland
  • France
  • Germany
  • India
  • Indonesia
  • Israel
  • Japan
  • Korea
  • Mexico
  • Middle East
  • Middle East - Arabic
  • Netherlands
  • Norway
  • Poland
  • Portugal
  • Russia
  • Slovakia
  • Spain
  • Sweden
  • United States
  • Vietnam

My Services

  • All News Releases
  • Customer Portal
  • Resources
  • Blog
  • Journalists
  • Data Privacy

Do not sell or share my personal information:

  • Submit via Privacy@cision.com 
  • Call Privacy toll-free: 877-297-8921

Contact PR Newswire

Products

About

My Services
  • All News Releases
  • Customer Portal
  • Resources
  • Blog
  • Journalists
+44 (0)20 7454 5110
from 8 AM - 5:30 PM GMT
  • Terms of Use
  • Privacy Policy
  • Information Security Policy
  • Site Map
  • RSS
  • Cookie Settings
Copyright © 2025 PR Newswire Europe Limited. All Rights Reserved. A Cision company.