Rootstock

RootStock (now RSK) is a smart-contract peer-to-peer platform built on top of the Bitcoin blockchain. Its goal is to add value and functionality to the core Bitcoin network by the implementation of sophisticated smart contracts as a sidechain.^[2][3]

The RSK MainNet was launched on January 2, 2018, only a week after the announced date^[4] to commemorate Bitcoin's birthday on January 3.

History

Rootstock was announced in LaBitconf 2015 held in Mexico city in December 2015. ^{[5] [6]} Soon, the company RSK Labs was founded in order to implement the proposed platform. In March 2016, $1 million was raised by the company.^[7] Also sometime in March, the project was renamed RSK.^{[8] [9]} In November 2016, RSK Labs launched the 'Turmetic' Testnet.^[10] In May 2017, RSK Raised $3.5 Million from private investors and launched an improved RSK Testnet.^[11] The RSK MainNet was launched on January 2, 2018.^[12]

Platform Characteristics

The RSK account model, virtual machine and application interface are highly compatible with Ethereum.^[13] However, RSK has adopted new opcodes that enable some additional functionality, like contract code upgrades.^[14]

RSK Consensus protocol is based on Proof-of-Work, enabling merge-mining^[15] with Bitcoin, but it does not implement the classical Nakamoto Consensus, but a variant of the GHOST protocol^[16] called DECOR+.^[13][17]

RSK achieves 100-300 transactions per second on chain and confirms most payments in less than 20 seconds, while leveraging Bitcoin's proof of work security(merged mining).^[18]

Rootstock uses the DECOR + GHOST protocol to reduce the block interval to an average of 10 seconds, which is lower than the current Ethereum block with an average block interval of 16 seconds.^{[citation needed]}

But with the Lumino Transaction Compression Protocol (LTCP), RSK will be able to process up to 2000 tps on chain! And once the Lumino Network is deployed over RSK, it will allow up to 20k tps off-chain taking Bitcoin to Visa processing levels.^[19]

Rsk also aims to scale by use sharding techniques.^[20]

Pegging

RSk uses bitcoins as its platform currency. Rsk archives this by pegging smart bitcoin to real bitcoins.

The 2-Way peg is often said to be a method to transfer BTC into SBTC and vice versa. In practice, when BTC are exchanged for SBTC, no currency is “transferred” between blockchains. There is no single transaction that does the job. This is because Bitcoin cannot verify the authenticity of balances on another blockchain. When a user intends to convert BTC to SBTC, some BTC are locked in Bitcoin and the same amount of SBTC is unlocked in RSK. When SBTC needs to be converted back into BTC, the SBTC get locked again in RSK and the same amount of BTC are unlocked in the Bitcoin blockchain. A security protocol ensures that the same Bitcoins cannot be unlocked on both blockchains at the same time.^[21]

When a Bitcoin user wants to use the 2-Way Peg, he sends a transaction to a multisig wallet whose funds are secured by the Federation. The same public key associated with the source bitcoins in this transaction is used on the RSK chain to store the Smart Bitcoins. This means that the private key that controlled the Bitcoins in the Bitcoin blockchain can be used to control an account on the RSK chain. Although both public and private keys are similar, each blockchain encodes the address in a different format.^[21]

References

External links

• Official Website

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