Bitcoin Compatibility Layer

Bitcoin Compatibility Layer

Side Chain is specifically crafted with Bitcoin-compatible features to provide a seamless and frictionless user experience:

• Bitcoin Address Compatibility: Unlike many other Bitcoin L2s or sidechains, Side Chain supports native Bech32/Bech32m address formats, enabling users to interact with Side Chain using their existing Bitcoin mainnet Taproot or Native SegWit addresses. This eliminates the need to create new wallets or manage multiple addresses.

• Bitcoin Wallet Compatibility: All transactions on Side Chain can be signed directly using popular Bitcoin wallets such as OKX Wallet, Unisat, or hardware wallets like Ledger.

• Embedded On-chain Bitcoin Light Client: Side Chain includes a built-in SPV (Simple Payment Verification) client that verifies Bitcoin mainnet transactions with 6 confirmations

Address Type

Unlike some other Bitcoin scaling solutions that require 0x-prefixed EVM addresses, Side Chain, as a fully Bitcoin-compatible chain, supports both Bitcoin’s Taproot and Native Segregated Witness (SegWit) addresses as its default address formats, sparing users the hassle of managing multiple address types. Additionally, Bitcoin wallets can directly sign transactions on Side Chain, bypassing the need for EVM wallets like MetaMask and offering a more intuitive, Bitcoin-native experience.

For example, Native SegWit addresses are encoded with Bech32 and begin with 'bc1q'. Here is an example:

{
    "name": "test",
    "type": "local",
    "address": "bc1qcr8te4kr609gcawutmrza0j4xv80jy8z306fyu",
    "pubkey": "{\\"@type\\":\\"/cosmos.crypto.segwit.PubKey\\",\\"key\\":\\"AzDVT9DdQgpuX402JPXzSCyuNQ951fB1O/W+75wtka88\\"}"
}

Bech32 encoding is a specific format used for representing Bitcoin addresses, introduced as part of the SegWit upgrade. It offers several advantages over previous address formats, including improved error detection and more efficient space usage in transactions.

SegWit addresses are those generated using Segregated Witness, a protocol upgrade implemented in Bitcoin to address issues like scalability and transaction malleability.

To support SegWit, the Side Chain implements cosmos.crypto.segwit.PrivKey and cosmos.crypto.segwit.PubKey for signing and verification. Therefore, SegWit addresses can be used on both Bitcoin and the Side Chain. Users on the Side Chain can utilize their Bitcoin wallets (such as OKX Wallet and Unisat) to sign transactions for staking, voting, and other activities on the Side Chain.