Computing on Bitcoin #100
July 31, 2026 - Week 31
Welcome to the 100th edition of Computing on Bitcoin News.
Reaching this milestone is something we're truly proud of. For the past 100 editions, we've been committed to providing a unique, carefully curated selection of the most relevant research, technical advances, and ecosystem developments in Bitcoin Computing, and we're excited to continue doing so for many more editions to come. Thank you for being part of this journey.
This week's edition also finds our leadership team (Jony, Sergio, and Futo) at Stanford, where Sergio and Futo will be presenting a new research paper at the Workshop on Cryptography for Bitcoin. If you're attending the event, don't hesitate to come say hello—we'd be delighted to discuss Bitcoin, cryptography, and the ideas shaping the future of the ecosystem.
Now, let's dive into this week's highlights.
Researchers including Robin Linus, Sergio Lerner, Ariel Futoransky, Srivatsan Sridhar, Dan Boneh, and others will present new work on BitVM, BitVMX, Bitcoin proof verification, Ark, witness encryption, post-quantum cryptography, and Bitcoin programmability at the Workshop on Cryptography for Bitcoin
bitcoin-cryptography-workshop.github.io
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Workshop on Cryptography for Bitcoin
With a market capitalization of more than a trillion USD, Bitcoin is the world’s largest cryptocurrency — yet its highly constrained programming environment limits its applications. Despite this, there is growing interest in building secure applications on Bitcoin, from faster and private payments to bridging Bitcoin to other blockchains.
A Bitcoin builders X Space brought together researchers and developers to present work on BitVM, BitVMX, Alpen Labs, Citrea, Ark, Spark, Shielded CSV, client-side validation, SNARK verification, and other Bitcoin scaling and infrastructure projects.
Bitcoin Builders Show & Tell: Enclaves, SNARK Verifiers, Script Restoration, Ark, Spark | X Space
youtube.com/@rexpaces
Smart Economy Network republished an X Spaces discussion covering the Bitcoin halving, BitVM, and Bitcoin Layer 2 opportunities, alongside broader topics on the Neo ecosystem and blockchain development
Bitcoin Halving, Neo's Future & BitVM | Crypto Coffee & Blockchain Beer #15
youtube.com/@SmartEconomyNetwork
Alpen Labs launched Testnet III on Bitcoin Signet, entering its partner integration phase with more than 21 launch partners while introducing a public garbled circuit-based verifier and infrastructure upgrades ahead of mainnet.
alpen.org/blog
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Alpen enters partner integration phase
Alpen Testnet III has launched on Bitcoin Signet, marking the beginning of Alpen’s partner integration phase ahead of mainnet.
Spark published a comparison of major Bitcoin rollups, reviewing architectures including Citrea, BOB, Strata, Starknet, BitcoinOS, B² Network, Merlin, and Botanix, with a technical overview of BitVM, bridge trust models, proof systems, and Bitcoin data availability tradeoffs.
spark.money/tools
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Bitcoin Rollup Comparison: Citrea, BOB, Starknet, and More
Bitcoin rollups execute transactions off-chain and post proofs or data back to Bitcoin L1 for settlement. Unlike Ethereum, Bitcoin lacks native smart contract verification, so rollups must rely on creative workarounds.
Bitfinex published an overview of Ark's progress from proposal to production, highlighting the launch of Arkade and Bark on Bitcoin mainnet.
blog.bitfinex.com
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Building Financial Infrastructure on Bitcoin with Ark
Ark was first proposed in 2023, promising to let users send and receive self-custodial bitcoin without needing to open Lightning channels, source inbound liquidity or operate an always-online node.
This concludes the 100th edition of Computing on Bitcoin News. We hope this newsletter continues to be a valuable resource for staying up to date with the latest research, technical breakthroughs, and ecosystem developments in Bitcoin Computing.
Thank you for following us throughout these first 100 editions. Your interest and engagement inspire us to keep curating the most relevant signals from the ecosystem, and we look forward to sharing many more with you.
The Fairgate Team