Drivechain: decentralized sidechains for Bitcoin

Hashrate Escrows

A mechanism defined by BIP300 that allows people to send money to specific sidechain "buckets" on the mainchain, and then block producers to vote over a long period of 3~6 months to authorize withdrawals back from that bucket. There is also an alternative, compatible proposal.

and

Blind Merged Mining

A mechanism that allows a sidechain to anchor itself on the Bitcoin chain (therefore not needing any proof-of-work of its own) while also pushing the sum of all its block fees into a single Bitcoin transaction that can be earned by Bitcoin block producers without them even knowing. It can be implemented using either this simple method that uses BIP118 or the more involved BIP301 method.

Drivechain is the technique for the creation of decentralized 2-way peg sidechains for Bitcoin. These sidechains can be used to improve Bitcoin in every front, including privacy, scalability, decentralization and security, and also add many interesting features not possible before that can make the world better and continue the revolution started by Satoshi Nakamoto. Join us!

Things to read or watch

From Paul Sztorc:

From others:

How does Drivechain improve...

Privacy: by making it quick and cheap to use Zcash, Mimblewimble and Monero-like sidechains, Bitcoin users have their privacy instantly improved without the need for costly and cumbersome and barely effective coinjoin methods.
Scalability: Sidechains can scale Bitcoin horizontally. Even without any new features, just by copying the Bitcoin code multiple times its scale is multiplied, and without burdening the main chain. This is sharding done right.
It's also possible to take proven scalability technologies invented elsewhere (client-side validation, zk-rollups, Lightning-like networks or a mix of all these) and apply them to Bitcoin directly through sidechains.
Decentralization: By using sidechains for scalability and features we can keep the Bitcoin chain small and lightweight, and maybe even reduce its block size. And then users of either combination of sidechains can choose the sidechain they want to run alongside the very small Bitcoin mainchain.
Security: By turning all block fees from a sidechain into a single transaction with a ton of fees to the Bitcoin miners, hashrate is increased, mining is more decentralized the Bitcoin chain is more secure. It's the solution to the unsolved problem of the shrinking block reward.
Innovation: So far we have only seen innovations in the blockchain space done by literal scammers. Once there is an environment in which honest and smart people can operate we will probably be surprised about the new things that will show up.

Possible Sidechains

A list of some good candidates of things that can be enabled as sidechains once BIP300 is activated on Bitcoin.

Hivemind, decentralized prediction markets that will revolutionize the emergence and diffusion of knowledge in society by making cheap talk expensive.
Namecoin, or some other form of blockchain for names, so we can do with ICANN what Bitcoin is doing to Central Banks (an idea of what that could look like).
Prime or zkCoins, two proposals for highly-scalable money transfer systems, powered by client-side validation, that only require a blockchain for very lightweight double-spend prevention, but not for storing any long-term data or global state.
zSide, Zcash fork that is already running as a sidechain on Drivenet to finally solve Bitcoin privacy problems. Also comes with decentralized and user-friendly melt/cast function.
RSK, Ethereum-compatible federated sidechain that already exists but wants to turn itself into a drivechain. Can be used as the hotbed of new ideas.
Monero, some people prefer this one, it has some real-world usage already and is even displacing Bitcoin in many darknet places.
Thunder, a reasonable proposal for large-block sidechains for scaling.
Sia, despite some weird shitcoining mixed in (that can be discarded), it's a simple design (a blockchain market for contracts and reputation) that solves a real problem (storing files) and apparently has proven to work over the years.

Adam Back	🟩	"Yes, of course!"
Luke Dashjr	⬜️	"I'm neutral on drivechain."
Mr Hodl	⬜️	"I personally don't really care. There are other people who are against them."
Giacomo Zucco	🟩	"I like Drivechain"
Eric Wall	🟩	"Yeah, I like drivechains better."
Robin Linus	🟩	"I think the exciting thing about Drivechains is bip300, which solves the 2-way peg."
Anton Kumaigorodski	🟩	"Here's another project which I think is more critical than LN for bitcoin's long term survival."
Jimmy Song	🟩	"The good news is that Drivechains don’t require (less) trusted entities and the code is almost done. The bad news is that Drivechains require a soft fork."
Rusty Russell	🟩	"The nice thing about Drivechains is that they're isolated, right? You don't have to use it if you don't want to, they exist and it doesn't damage Bitcoin in any way. So from like a high level I'm broadly supportive, but, I'm not in the weeds and can't give any like deep technical critiques."
Sergio Demian Lerner	🟩	"I hope Bitcoin someday soft-forks to add Drivechain"
Hasu	🟩	"Drivechain: good"
Hampus	🟩	"My favorite solution for this is Drivechains BIP300/301 + an interoperable Lightning Network."
calle	🟩	"I support BIP-300!"
Peter Todd	🟥	"Just use an alt currency."
John Carvalho	🟥	"Sidechains are inferior to altcoins."
Sjors Provoost	🟥	"I'm worried it will bring politics and drama from altcoins to Bitcoin. This doesn't happen today because since altcoins are viable the drama people go there and have their drama."
Ben, the Carman	🟥	"There's a million other ways to do side chains, I don't see why we need to soft fork another way in"
Torkel Rogstad	🟩	"We desperately need to take a long and hard look in the mirror, and start doing things differently. I think starting a more serious and thorough discussion about BIP300 (Drivechain) is the right place to start. "
Metamick	🟩	"If you do the research, it makes so much sense to do drivechains."

Drivechain