Side Protocol Overview

Turn Bitcoin into opportunities

Overview

Side Protocol is a decentralized banking infrastructure unlocking the value of underutilized BTC, fueling a new era of global financial freedom.

At a high level, Side Protocol consists of three core infrastructure components:

Side Chain: Side Chain, the L1 blockchain of Side Protocol, is purpose-built for Bitcoin compatibility, preserving users’ native Bitcoin addresses and allowing all transactions to be signed with standard Bitcoin wallets.

Side Lending: Natively integrated into Side Chain and powered by Discreet Log Contracts, Side Lending enables native BTC-backed loans with decentralized oracles, permissionless liquidity pools, liquidations, and much more.

Side Bitcoin: Natively enshrined in Side Chain, Side Bitcoin is a FROST-based Bitcoin bridge run by validators. It supports key refresh to update signers without changing the vault, and routing to forward BTC across other chains without manual hops.

Side Lending and Side Bitcoin are enshrined at the protocol level of Side Chain. They are logically and cryptographically independent, and serve distinct use cases with differing trust assumptions. See our Trust Assumptions for details.

Side Lending

A native Bitcoin lending protocol powered by Discreet Log Contracts (DLCs)

Side Chain

A purpose-built, fully Bitcoin-compatible dPoS Layer 1 blockchain

Side Bitcoin

A FROST-based Bitcoin bridge operated by Side Chain validators

SIDE

The staking, governance, and value-accruing token of Side Protocol