Kapow and Bitcoin-Anchored Finality
A new proposal introduces Kapow (Kheckpoint-Anchored Proof-of-Work), a mechanism designed to anchor Liquid checkpoints to Bitcoin for stronger finality guarantees. The proposal outlines how Bitcoin-backed checkpoints could strengthen BitVM-based bridges by reducing risks associated with consensus reorganization and aligning with 1-of-n trust assumptions.
gist.github.com
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💥 Kapow: Bitcoin Finality Guarantees for the Liquid Network
Liquid's original design made a sensible tradeoff: since the peg itself depended on a federation with an honest-majority trust assumption, Liquid consensus could also depend on the same federation. Adding a separate proof-of-work or merge-mined consensus layer would have added complexity without removing the dominant trust assumption, because BTC custody still depended on the federation.