# Scaling Bitcoin With Ethereum Infrastructure - Omar Espejel

- Speakers: [Omar Espejel](https://streameth.org/speakers/omar-espejel)
- Channel: [ETH Warsaw](https://streameth.org/eth-warsaw)
- Date: 2025-10-07
- Duration: 26:40
- Watch: https://streameth.org/watch/yt-UX2MldWntr0
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UX2MldWntr0

## Description

Let's explore how Bitcoin scaling is being approached with OPCAT. Starkware is at the forefront of this innovation, potentially making StarKnet the first network with access to both Ethereum and Bitcoin. This will be incredibly interesting.


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## Transcript

thank you very much for the for introduction I'm I'm very happy to be here I'm loving warso I never been here before and it's it's amazing it's amazing I was reading a tweet about wara Poland overall being an economic Miracle since it's developing a lot and I also heard maybe maybe you can correct me but that in four years is going to have a higher GDP per capita than the UK Poland yeah that's true right so economy is all the world very enthusiastic about Poland and it's very very interesting to see first to see it Firs hand like all the development that has happened here and well I don't know what will happen in 10 years right it's going to be I don't know like a beast so that's right then well let's go let's go with our topic today so er who you know about starnet here all right all right about starkware all right all right all right okay so star war is the company that is behind the creation of a starnet right and recently since May there was an announcement that there will be a lot of focus on also scaling Bitcoin with all the tools that we already develop for for ethereum so it's going to be very very interesting because we will be able to reach both ethereum and Bitcoin in the same star layer too so there's a also a lot of questions like is a stet it Maxi or not right star star war has explicit said that they are Starks Maxi so they want to use this technology the Starks the cryptography behind Stark net to scale what is important and also follows certain values and the values that the that the Starks align with are with ethereum and Bitcoin so in this case h we wouldn't be scaling Solana for example because maybe we think that the values that we go with are ethereum and Bitcoin so it's this is an amazing technology development and that's I be talking about so we're going to be talking about the scalability challenge something that I think that you already know very well then about the Starks then we will go into the implementation in Bitcoin and how ethereum sorry how the Starks and star is going to be the bridge between ethereum and Bitcoin and this interconnected future that we can have and all the good things that can bring to us so of of course a disclaimer this is H personal presentation is not the opinion of starware neither from the Star Foundation which I % by the way so let's go with the scalability challenge so we know that ethereum process you you know this not that many transactions per per second Bitcoin even even an even lower number and of course we got a global demand of billion of potential users wanting to use ethereum and Bitcoin and I mean it's okay that we're that we are having 15 transactions in ethereum around 15 transactions in Bitcoin 7 it's okay why because these two systems were developed in order to be de centralized right so so they are focusing on the centralization first and maybe scalability afterwards so first the the layer of security which is something that other layer two layer ones don't don't do like for example Sana is not their priority I'm not saying that they are not the centralized it's just that their priority was more performance and it's okay right everyone chooses their own their own poison and in this case ether Bitcoin go goes for security first so the ABM by the way was not made for for scaling right so of course this this hinders the the possible Mass adoption that we could have for example ER elen Sasson says that there's Le at least 1.5 billion people that are lacking for for Banking and Bitcoin could be the the way that they they get on boarding into Financial system but of course with seven with having one one transaction per each 7 seconds is not I know it's not it's not going to make it like we're scaling right now is not enough but we would also like to scale Bitcoin in that sense so now going to the Starks ethereum solution that we have proposed initially for for ethereum now for for Bitcoin so the Starks who knows about the Starks who has heard about it's a very very very technical audience so okay so Bic the Starks ER were initially implemented for ethereum and they can prove that they important thing here is that they can prove complex computations without having to to to reveal the data right so that allow us forget about privacy for the moment because privacy of course is something that you can do with the Starks you cannot do it currently with the starnet but in the future there are some talks about maybe implementing Noir from from the Aztec team or other privacy Focus languages or systems on top of a star so that is something that I think is going to happen so actually one of the main arguments for scaling Bitcoin in this is also providing is giving privacy to bitcoin which is something that bitcoiners tend to like that kind of of things so we will be able to have privacy also on top of Bitcoin in the next situation if if everything goes well which is basically op cats so which we're going to be talking about that but yes basically the technology at hand of ethereum scaling for starnet is the Starks and they allow us to prove complex computations of the of the chain and then verify it on the Chain which is which makes things much much cheaper and also at the same time Starks provide post Quantum security this something that maybe you have heard before something that vial has talk also before like he believes that Starks are the future proof H cryptography primitive that we can have because it's basically it provides post Quantum Security in theory so whenever we have some Quantum algorithms that are able to break the elliptic cor cryptography then the Starks theoretically Will Survive that kind of things so we we have seen a big move towards Starks recently in ethereum for example s recently move from snarks to Starks um of course Stark net we also have the risk five team is risk zero team is also using Starks um I know several polyon m is also using star so there's we're getting more and more attention towards Starks and we expect this in the future to even increase forther so Z knowledge is very related right now to start to STS and also we we have this not set of require which is very important for us and it's also that goes with the values of Bitcoin right like not no don't trust verify right and this also our our main core H like what what we like is computational integrity in the sense that we know uh because we're verifying everything we are not trusting the world of anyone right which goes more with maybe optimistic rollups that kind of stuff but go go I don't want to get into details with that but we want to prove every transaction that goes and then verify that it was H that it has Integrity right so again this goes with both I think ethereum and Bitcoin ER ethos right but with the Bitcoin Community we need to be very very puristic it's a it's a different Beast so oh at the same time stars are battel tested we have H we have have over one million1 trillion dollar settled already using Starks so you know the Kyo langu which is behind H dydx version 3 sare H Reno 5 a lot of different comp company so a lot of money has already been moved with Starks and and there have there has never been a failure okay never been a failure so this is something that a lot of people don't know but Cyro the language that we're using in starnet and and hopefully in Bitcoin soon and and using the Starks has never fail has never failed it has already settled over 1 million1 trillion dollar so it's something that is already proven I don't know maybe more than snarks that's a good question like how many how many resources have been settled using snarks I don't know to be honest because starnet was the first Z knowledge roll up to be on mainnet since 2021 November 2021 so and before that we have the star KCK so I don't know there's a lot of money that has been moved here so okay so in etherum how so we implemented the starnet as layer to eum this is something that you already know we're using the language Cairo who knows Cairo here like has heard about Cairo Kyo is like perfect it's a programing language is similar to roast if you know roast C++ see any any of these uh uh backend languages hardcore back languages you will be lowlevel languages you will be able to grasp Kyro very easily if not it's also not that hard I think it's much easier than than rast for example but it follows again always we have always the security mindset right so something that Rost is very known for is that is very safe right it makes you define every possible scenario like if you have an error then what will happen right so this is something that you also is type of course so it's much more secure or at least more explicit than python or JavaScript and this is what we're trying to follow with KIRO making it very very strict on what you're writing so you can create by default save programs so KIRO is it's it's a very nice language you can explore it it's much easier than than rast of course and I think it's easier than solidity and I prefer it than to solidity and we need car is not like we we created it in in Star War because we needed something that could be start friendly so the code that you create in CYO goes then into Starks and and that will be easily a then go into the pro and then verify it so we needed KY because of that it was not like a something that we wanted to do because of phone right so okay uh and of course this provide us with fractal scaling that for us in starnet is very important which is the layer two then layer three and maybe you can have a layer four what does this mean is it means that you will have infinite scaling so every time that you go up up the the prices of the transaction could be much lower and also the the speed could be much higher so this is what we call the fractal scaling and it's something that we want to bring to bitcoin to and of course uh we we are talking right now we recently had a a nice update in stet that and we our Pig TPS transactions per seconds is on the 200s so we have we are currently we are currently the the lowest fees the lowest fee Layer Two in in in ethereum and and the fastest layer too this happened last week so it's very very recently so again finally we are able to see the potential of zero knowledge we have since I don't know like 2021 we have talked about zero knowledge is going to be H Superior to optimistic rups because it's going to be able to scale infin infinitely and so on but finally finally with start we're able to see that like right now I don't see an a scenario where arbitr more optimism for example could be faster or with lower cheap H fees than than starnet this will only increase in time with with stet so I don't know like we are in in a very interesting position right now so now how we implement it in Bitcoin the The crucial problem here is opat who has heard about opcat here okay so opat is the main challenge here like opad is a simple very powerful Bitcoin op code that was actually before implemented and then eliminated by Satoshi I think it was in in 2011 but basically what it does what it allows to do is to join is to join different elements using Bitcoin script and this is essential for implementing the Starks and of course the verifier and also kind of like having an State like a memory in Bitcoin so this is this is crucial op seems very simple but it when it allows you to join elements that will be very useful so we currently have a couple Layer Two implementations in in top of Bitcoin I I think citria other companies are doing layer to implementations but they are not depending on opat but if we get opat H merch or done in in Bitcoin then we'll be able to use the starb fire the starb fire that we useing in ethereum the equivalent we can bring it to bitcoin and then I don't know a lot of a lot of cool things could happen and yes as we as I was mentioned before opat was part of Bitcoin but it was removed due to certain vulnerabilities that's that could U affect Bitcoin seriously so in order for us to reintroduce it Star War has created a font that you can apply if you you want to research on the potential issues or potential H Goods that that opat can bring to to B to yeah to bitcoin scaling you can apply for a grant by Star War there's $1 million allocated by Star War to research the potential issues of opad implementation or the potential Goods of the op implementation so H if you want to to know more about this let me know I will be here I also will be the in the stand of of starnet but you can apply to do some research on this topic it's very very interesting so we want to know exactly what could be the consequences of this so of course the the roduction has been proposed through the famous VIP 420 and well this will allow us to have more complex scripts and smart contract this is the crucial part smart contract functionality right and of course the star verifier so um oh sorry I I was talking about okay so and what what what's the main issue with opat initially it would be that there was an exponential string road so since you can conc conc concatenate and concatenate you can make a very big string which could be H we could create something very very big and if we like according to El the the simplest way to to solve this so it's kind of like for me at least and I know for a lot of people it's kind of like an in cognito of why it was H taken down from Bitcoin initially so it was because of this H strings problem like like the string world problem but in reality to S on president of Star War and Creator creator of the Starks this can be very easily solved just by implementing a limit cap on the on the strings so for example hard cap on total script size for example one megabyte maximum right and then you must cut the this the string or could be like also limit the the number of opat operations per script so there we could have certain limits but I don't know it's it's it's hard for me to to understand why wasn't these safeguards implemented before so that's why we need more research to know the consequences of this and of course uh Bitcoin the Bitcoin people tend to be very they they don't like to implement more stuff into Bitcoin so these uh caps could be weird for them that the more you add the more they get a little bit crazy right and more difficult for us to to implement this but at the same time they they know they they need this scalability right we approaching a oh this very important they know at the same time that they need this because this will bring more fees to the miners right so it's like there's a cly there's a big debate in the in the Bitcoin in the Bitcoin community and it's very very interesting so why Starks and Bitcoin are good are a good match mathematically speaking so I am not an expert on this I must say that this before but basically Bitcoins relies on hash functions with is actually the power of the Starks so I told you before that the Starks are have a post Quantum Security in the sense that it is not using elliptic corpse but is using hash functions as its main source of security and Bitcoin does the same Bitcoin is H is based on hash functions so there's like a like relatively easy match this is something that doesn't happen with with snars that are not hash based and sarks are also using aside from hashing is also using bitwise operations which again are very efficient some Bitcoin script so I I don't know exact I need to ask the star war team but it seems like stars were made also for Bitcoin like it makes a lot of sense to to put them in there also so I know it's a it's a very nice match and I don't know would be interesting to see if snarks can be implemented in Bitcoin in Bitcoin script too would be very very interesting so uh sorry for this long slide but basically the the key star components and the Bitcoin comp compatibility is the Merle trees which are used already in Bitcoin and starnet the Fiat Shamir euristic based of on hash functions the r Solomon codes which can also be implemented using fin an field arithmetic again these are this is a little bit arid but basically Starks as Bitcoin avoid complex operations like elliptic Corp pairings and maintaining so so this keeps the Bitcoin ethos and very simple computational model so again it seems like Starks and Bitcoin honestly are being made like it's like a match already so that that's very very good already for us so er the Starks versus other Zer knowledge proof systems for Bitcoin again this is very new and it remains to be seen how other H Ser knowledge Primitives such as the snarks ER imp could propose an implementation in Bitcoin I haven't seen anything yet if you know something let me know but that will be also very interested interesting so again the the Starks are using no thrusted setup which is something that has been one of the weakness of the of snarks so this again this aligns with bitcoin's trustless nature that you don't trust anyone you you only trust mathematics and that's what we want to do in that's that's the ethos of Star War also and also again the the postquantum security Simplicity for underlying operations what I talk before and of course the scalability that is basically the significant of change computation that we can do and then bring it verify it on chain so basically as a summary of this section ER opat will be very relevant for us to implement the to to get to have both smart contracts on bitcoin and implement the the Stark verifier on bitcoin and Stark seems to be like a match made in hell for for Bitcoin and also the opat will allow us to have the Covenant which is basically implementing a smart contracts on bitcoin this is another another interesting topic so Covance basically er sorry so Covance enabled by by the op cat will allow us to create smart contracts on bitcoin while preserving the utxo model that that Bitcoin has and basically will allow us to have kind of like um like a state as as in as an ethereum like uh like yeah having a memory of what is happening and this could allow us to have Smart contracts but for this again we need to have the opat and of course to to have opat there's not only like the mathematical well before going into that so the goal of this in the end what I was talking before is having the star verification star verification star verification we have even talked with some layer 2 companies I mean sorry layer two companies for Bitcoin and they are if if the opat gets merged then they are interested in using the star war prer the St Pro which will come soon H into their implementations of the layer to so we will see like more chiro code being written in not only in startet as a layer two for Bitcoin but we'll also see it as a lay as a for other layer twos in in uh in Bitcoin so uh so St verification will be crucial for us so we can have the verification happening on chain which as you etherum people know H we we know it's it's much cheaper to verify something than than to make all the computation right so that's what that's the premise of the zero knowledge rollups right create computation of chain verify it on chain sorry uh competition off chain yes verified on chain so okay so basically that's what what what we're looking for and before my time my time finish and well this this will allow us of course to have a Bitcoin that is lean and efficient so what are the issues here of course um we need to research opat again as I mentioned before and also of course the covenants and all the possible consequences some some initial research show us that it will be okay for us to implement certain caps to the size of the string so we can H prevent the issues from coming from opat but more remains to be seen as I see some people are are just entering here so we have a grant to research this information 1 million Grand H by Star War to implement to to research and and and see implementation of opcat and the star verifier so let us know and also we have a lot of funds already allocated in building the verifier so we're already building everything so that when opcat happens if it happens hopefully then it's just a m a matter of connecting everything and we'll have it done so there's a lot of of of of funding and resources on this so let me know it will be in the let me know right right here or you can see me in the in the startet boot and we can talk about this but okay so there's there's some changes needed in the Bitcoin protocol and well we have benefits and considerations and as we know there we need a consensus by the community right and and the Bitcoin Community is is a different Bas than the etherum communi they are when I was doing with the sty War people how they are implementing this and all the research they they they are very different like they for example they don't like to be a they don't like kyc which some you need to pay them for research for example you want to do some research on certain topics they don't like kyc and that kind of stuff and it's something that we need as a company so I know it's different and and it's very very interesting to to to also be talking talking with them so Implement so what what are sorry H so again this bring us with fractal scaling with rollups not only with etherum as I mentioned before but we could have it as a Bitcoin for for Bitcoin layer one so imagine having layer two layer three which basically will have what it bring us is like an infinite scaling in in in in Bitcoin so yes so well potential potential increase of course this theoretical but we're talking about uh a several times increase in in in the true put in in the in the speeds and of course also in the in the cost of the transactions which again is good for Bitcoin I mean who doesn't want a cheaper Bitcoin right really who doesn't want a cheaper Bitcoin a and a faster Bitcoin like again we believe that Bitcoin could Bank a lot of individuals in the that that doesn't that are on Bank currently and I know that I live in well I I am Latin American and I know that a lot of people are using Bitcoin for even for storing their their value of their of the resource so yes having Bitcoin a faster and cheaper Bitcoin is good for everyone and of course there's some risk uh of course whenever you make something more complex some risk come right H something that the Bitcoin Community is not very happy of is the Meb this is particularly important for them H they don't want this so this is something that we can also see in in the future sorry sorry again and was again we're ethereum conference right and I'm also a person ethereum and starting this on top of ethereum and this that that I'm talking about is theoretical so it will happen so whoever knows Cairo will be able to create a smart contracts that interact with both bit connectively not not with a bridge I mean it's not not with a bridge like actually Implement use Bitcoin into defi in in the most in the most likely the most secure way possible right not with a bridge because I've seen a lot of w a lot of new tokens with BTC Curr for example they was looking at SWS and they seem secure but I mean this is this is the next Paramount of of secureness so of security sorry so we will be breaching eum and Bitcoin and we will be I mean like in in in as a summary we could have defi ethereum defi with Bitcoin natively so this opens a lot of liquidity a lot of liquidity for for anyone that is is building something on startet so if you know Cairo you will be able to use it for Bitcoin and for for for ethereum so I know you don't need to do anything basically so this cross chain development is very nice and in the end ER well we will be able to use this Stark technology which which is B tested already and all our expertise in scaling for Bitcoin so this could be very very interesting and having a very nice so time is up but I don't know there's some risk but basically just to finish the vision that we have here is that crypto is basically a source of good right for us it's a source of good it can allow us to bring to to empower the individuals that doesn't have power like honestly we're talking honestly honestly here I'm not selling crap or something like that but it really empowers individuals for in know for them not to depend on centralized institutions and this is this is true and that is the power of the Starks and we can bring the Starks for Bitcoin and also for ethereum and it's okay and this is the vision that El s has and we allow us to have an open more accessible Financial system Empower communities individual and more so and and we can even we haven't even touched the the topic of privacy but privacy could be is relatively easily implemented in in both Bitcoin and ethereum with starnet so this is this is very very cool and thank you very much for for for your time my name is Omar pel there's my telegram so feel free to to to ping me if you want to be I don't know if you want to participate in this research or code we have some imple open source implementations it will be also in the boot but there's my telegram so feel free to to send me a message if you want to participate in this thank you very much