risczero.com/blog
🔗 Introducing R0VM 2.0
Zero-knowledge computing has evolved through three distinct eras, and we’ve been at the forefront of each one.
· The ZK Stone Age: Cryptographers built ZK apps by writing low-level circuits. Tooling was minimal, and ZK was out of reach for most people.
· R0VM 1.0 - From PhDs to Developers: With the first general-purpose zkVM, we made ZK accessible to developers. You could now write Rust, generate proofs, and verify them on any chain.
· R0VM 2.0 - The Real-Time Era: Now, performance arrives. ZK is not just accessible, but also fast and efficient enough to power modern blockchain applications.

blog.bitfinex.com
🔗 What is the Coming BitVMX Upgrade for Rootstock?
The Rootstock and Fairgate partnership, along with participation from Input Output (IO), also includes a joint initiative called “BitVMX Force,” which aims to standardise protocols and prepare infrastructure for future soft-forks.
BitVMX introduces a new layer of programmability to Bitcoin through a virtual machine that enhances Bitcoin’s utility for advanced applications

blog.bitfinex.com
🔗 RootstockLabs Prepares to Release SDKs for Bitcoin Layer 2s Using BitVMX
Alongside BitVMX contributors Fairgate, RootstockLabs last year made a breakthrough in using BitVMX to verify a zero-knowledge SNARK (Succinct Non-Interactive Argument of Knowledge), an integral aspect of cryptography in many blockchain systems.
The availability of tools for other developers to explore these capabilities further will drive competition and thus increase adoption, according to Lerner.
"There is a difference between a product and a platform: a product is closed but a platform is something you can easily plug in to and develop your own ideas on top of," he said.

bitcoininsider.org
🔗 Cardano Is Built For Bitcoin DeFi, Hoskinson Says — Ethereum And Solana Aren’t
A recurring theme in Hoskinson’s remarks was Cardano’s on-chain treasury system, which he contrasted with other major blockchains: “At the end of the day, we have a $1.5 billion treasury for everybody to use and…if you hold Bitcoin, you don’t have this; if you hold Ether or Solana, you don’t have this. But we have this and…we have an on-chain governance… The technology is sound.”
“With our partnership with BitVMX FORCE, we’re enabling Aiken, Plutus, and other languages to write Bitcoin smart contracts and Cardano smart contracts. We have all the off-chain infrastructure figured out,” Hoskinson added.

bitvmx.org/knowledge
🔗 Improving BitVMX with Bitcoin Soft-forks
Since the BitVMX FORCE team is committed to making BitVMX the foundation for smart contract applications on Bitcoin, we asked ourselves: how much more powerful could BitVMX become if Bitcoin adopts certain proposed features? The answer is clear — it becomes even more useful! Not only BitVMX would still be a leading tool to compute on Bitcoin, but actually BitVMX becomes more efficient, and more importantly, more decentralized, if some new opcodes are soft-forked into Bitcoin.

coingape.com
🔗 Bitcoin Layer 2s Must Learn These Lessons From Ethereum : Bitlayer CoFounder
Bitcoin Layer 2s:- The race to scale Bitcoin and bring it into the DeFi ecosystem is heating up. Emerging Bitcoin Layer 2s like Bitlayer, Stacks, Lightning Network, Rootstock, are making significant efforts to introduce Ethereum-like capabilities to the Bitcoin network.

hemi.xyz/blog
🔗 Inside the Engine Room: A Recap of the First Hemi Protocol Engineering AMA
One of the biggest projects underway is a full refactor of the Hemi daemons—breaking out and modularizing services like BFG, BSS, OpNode, and OpGeth. The goal is to make it easier to run nodes in different configurations. Whether you’re a payment processor, a DApp builder, or just want to run a POP miner without relying on public infra, the new structure will let you pick the minimal setup needed for your use case.