Bitcoin Layers

At the risk of being reductive, there are only two areas to focus on for Bitcoin layers to be realized

1. A ‘safe enough’ BTC bridge
2. Tx validity enforcement

And 2 doesn’t reallyyy matter until we have 1

Once we can activate the hundreds of billions of $ worth of BTC, which is currently underutilized 

We have activated the need for layers

It is at this point that tx validity becomes important. We’ve ‘safely’ moved btc to a new execution environment (safe enough)

So now we must make sure our actions are safe

Without enforcement of tx validity, your btc is only safe when static

Safety in motion (collateralizing stables, lending, DeFi, yield etc etc) comes from enforceable proofs posted to L1 with bitcoin’s level of security. This part is not as clear today as the bridging part is

Risk is not a binary yes/no, it’s a spectrum

At some point, a bridge design will cross the arbitrary threshold that is safe enough, and boom we get a liquidity avalanche. There’s a reason so few btc are locked in wbtc or other bridges, we aren’t there yet. Tbtc, sbtc, and bitvm are promising steps towards it