Torben Poguntke

I built systems where a bug means someone gets hurt. Now I build systems that protect people's Bitcoin. CTO @pogun_io.

[Torben Poguntke @blocksmithy]

@pogun_io @omerh_ 🚀

[Torben Poguntke @blocksmithy]

None of this makes software bug-free.

A ledger bug is a ledger bug, and the answer is audits, formal verification, and engineering practice held to safety standards.

What the design changes is what a bug can reach: one UTxO, through one proof, after a delay, out of an operator's pocket first.

Isolation is not a new idea. Every safety standard for systems that can kill people starts with it.

[Torben Poguntke @blocksmithy]

Around 4,000 BTC left a bridge on Sunday. No key was compromised. The signers signed a withdrawal that was correct by every rule they could check, because the sidechain software had created coins indistinguishable from everyone else's. Twenty-three minutes after those coins reached the peg-out service, the payment was on Bitcoin.

Everything worked as designed. Three properties of that design decided the outcome, and none of them is about honesty.

@pogun_io @omerh_

[Torben Poguntke @blocksmithy]

Between burn and payout there is a proof and a time window.
The operator fronts the withdrawal from their own funds, so the user is not waiting. To be reimbursed, the operator posts a claim carrying a Groth16 proof that the burn of that specific NFT happened and that the fronted payment landed on Bitcoin.

A false proof cannot be forged. A false claim can still be posted, but one honest verifier is enough to stop it.

[Torben Poguntke @blocksmithy]

Bitcoin DeFi just became a reality:
40 GiB → 0.0281 GB.
354 seconds → 0.149 seconds
$14211 → $37

Proof on mainnet.

[Torben Poguntke @blocksmithy]

Reading a bridge design tells you what should happen. Watching one execute tells you what it does.

Recorded a walkthrough.

#Bitcoin #Cardano @pogun_io @omerh_

[Torben Poguntke @blocksmithy]

Reading a bridge design tells you what should happen. Watching one execute tells you what it does.

Recorded a walkthrough.

#Bitcoin #Cardano @pogun_io @omerh_

[Torben Poguntke @blocksmithy]

Reading a bridge design tells you what should happen. Watching one execute tells you what it does.

Recorded a walkthrough.

#Bitcoin #Cardano @pogun_io @omerh_

[Torben Poguntke @blocksmithy]

A good friend of mine did this, currently preprod testnet only. Try it.
https://t.co/jr9IpQZ63E

[Torben Poguntke @blocksmithy]

A contract that can verify the chain it runs on, trustlessly and cheaply, is a primitive Cardano has never had. Now it does.

[Torben Poguntke @blocksmithy]

The Mithril zero-knowledge light client verifies Cardano's own state inside a Cardano contract. It carries two costs: proving the certificate chain off-chain, and verifying that proof on-chain. Both are coming down.

[Torben Poguntke @blocksmithy]

The van Rossem hard fork adds CIP-133: that same multi-scalar multiplication as a native Plutus builtin. Moving it out of hand-written script and into the protocol will cut the dominant on-chain cost significantly.

[Torben Poguntke @blocksmithy]

@DanoFinance Not publicly yet, but if there's interest I can look at putting an example together when I get some time.