Fundamentals
What is Surge Metalayer?
Surge Network is a composable MetaLayer on Bitcoin built to provide a secure, fast, and cost-effectiv network for launching Rollups and dApps to scale Bitcoin innovation. It combines Bitcoin's robust security model with advanced cryptographic techniques like zkp-aggregation and decentralized verification mechanisms, which ensure scalability without compromising security.
In short, Surge serves as the ideal interstitial metalayer, inheriting Bitcoin’s security and extending it to everything built on top of its network.
Why build a Metalayer?
Having studied various Bitcoin scaling approaches, the race to scale Bitcoin is real and there is no definitive way of getting it right.
Be it protocol level changes like OP_CAT, inscription based solutions or various other off-chain-compute on-chain-verify solutions, one thing is clear — Most upcoming scaling projects will bloat the state of Bitcoin
This in turn will price out a majority of the current Bitcoin users due to extremely high transaction fees and multiple scaling solutions competing for the already limited blockspace.
Our approach to solving this problem is by using a novel way of aggregating proofs. Surge’s architecture routes zero-knowledge proofs across multiple rollups, dApps on it and aggregates it on the metalayer, to drastically reduce the footprint of data that needs to be attested on Bitcoin to main the state.
This not only drives the cost down for L2s it also cuts the frequency needed to push data on mainchain thereby further freeing up blockspace.
Surge Network Overview
How does it work?
The Surge network adopts a modular approach, leveraging the best practices and lessons from other ecosystems. Inspired by the Cosmos modular design, Surge enables decentralized proof validation, while CometBFT ensures Byzantine Fault Tolerant (BFT) consensus across the network, offering high performance and security. The Surge Integration Kit empowers developers to integrate Zero-Knowledge Proofs (ZKPs) and deploy secure rollups and dApps, inheriting Bitcoin's robust security guarantees. This approach provides a reliable foundation for Surge's key network components:
- Verifiers: Surge Verifiers specialize in zk-proof verification. They periodically aggregate and inscribe validated proofs onto the Bitcoin blockchain, referencing specific Bitcoin blocks for seamless integration and verification.
- Integrated Signers: Utilizing the DKLs23 signature scheme, the Integrated Signers maintain a decentralized P2P network structure with threshold TSS. They manage transaction signing and distributed cryptographic keys, ensuring secure and precise BTC vault operations.
- UTXO Indexers: Open to anyone, Surge UTXO Indexers ensure transparent and seamless data retrieval, facilitating the verification of proof settlements across the network.
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