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Journalist
Sead Fadilpašić
Journalist
Sead Fadilpašić
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Rootstock, a Bitcoin sidechain for smart contracts, announced a major three-pronged upgrade that boosts its scalability, security, and decentralization.
According to the press release shared with Cryptonews, this is not just one upgrade but “multiple coordinated efforts” that optimize Rootstock’s core functionality.
The improvements result in significantly reduced gas fees, stronger Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) compatibility, improved PowPeg functionality, and an upcoming faster transaction protocol.
Notably, the team has already implemented the upgrade that lowers gas fees by 60% at announcement time. The Lovell Upgrade will go live later today, while the Faster Protocol will launch in the near future.
According to Daniel Fogg, CEO of RootstockLabs and contributor to Rootstock, the substantial reduction in fees “makes Rootstock cheaper and more accessible for users.”
Moreover, this upgrade was “a significant collective effort across the ecosystem, with strong involvement from miners,” Fogg added. “Rootstock is now more competitive than any other Bitcoin Layer 2.”
Overall, the team said this latest, multifaceted transformation aligns with their goal to establish a more scalable, decentralized, and cost-efficient Bitcoin-based smart contract platform.
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Lovell Upgrade Launches Tonight
The announcement highlighted that the three upgrades are part of the team’s broader plan to improve the Rootstock sidechain through 2025.
As noted above, thanks to optimizations from Rootstock’s merge-mining partners, Rootstock transactions are now 60% cheaper. Users can now interact with decentralized dapps and smart contracts for a lower fee, while builders can deploy and maintain smart contracts at lower cost.
Besides the fee reduction, the team has announced the launch of the Lovell Upgrade later today. It will bring EVM compatibility, heightened security, and network decentralization improvements to PowPeg. The latter is the native bridge that connects Bitcoin and Rootstock.
The full EVM-compatibility enables anything built on any EVM chain to be deployed on Bitcoin using Rootstock without other tools.
At the same time, PowPeg increases security by ensuring that changes are verified before taking effect, so that locked funds remain safe and accessible, said the announcement.
Additionally, the update expands decentralization by working to increase the number of pegnatories (PowPeg signers) from 9 to 60.
Finally, Rootstock’s Faster Protocol is currently under development. Once launched, it will introduce near-instant confirmations, reducing block time from 30 seconds to 5 seconds.
Higher transaction throughput will enable “a smoother and faster user experience,” the team said.
Meanwhile, Rootstock says that it combines Ethereum’s programmability with Bitcoin’s value and decentralization. It utilizes the Solidity programming language and is secured by over 60% of the hash power of Bitcoin through a consensus mechanism known as Merge Mined Proof-Of-Work.
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