A recent integration may soon usher in smart contracts on the Bitcoin blockchain. In a three-phase process, Internet Computer (ICP) is working on direct integration with the Bitcoin blockchain.
The Internet Computer is a blockchain computer that scales smart contract computation and data and runs them at web speed. It was launched by DFINITY into the public domain on May 10, 2021.
ICP, the native token of Internet Computer, ranks as the 27th largest cryptocurrency according to CoinMarketCap data and trades at $32.48. Taking cues from the Ethereum co-founder, Vitalik Buterin, who believes that the “future will be multi-chain, but it will NOT be cross-chain,” Dfinity states that direct integration is next-level cryptography.
The first phase of the integration, referred to as Threshold ECDSA, is a prerequisite for BTC-ICP direct integration for both networks to talk to one another as an ICP smart contract needs an ECDSA public key and to securely sign and submit transactions to BTC.
The next two phases are the launch of the BTC-ICP testnet and mainnet, respectively.
