interBTC price

IBTC

iBTC is trustless Bitcoin on any blockchain - fully collateralized, interoperable, and censorship-resistant. iBTC allows everyone to invest, pay and earn on their BTC, trustless and on any blockchain.

Interlay’s BTC bridge is the secure way to use Bitcoin in the multi-chain ecosystem. iBTC, a 1:1 BTC-backed asset, is secured by a decentralized network of vaults. BTC deposits are insured by a multi-collateral system and secured by cross-chain light clients.

iBTC holders are guaranteed to redeem iBTC 1:1 for BTC, or automatically be reimbursed in collateral in case of failure. This makes iBTC the only truly decentralized and economically trustless BTC bridge (as of July 2023).

iBTC is deployed on the Interlay network, is already available on 17 Polkadot and Kusama parachains and soon will be available on Ethereum, Cosmos and other major L1 networks.

iBTC is 1:1 backed by BTC. As such, there can never be more iBTC that BTC.

Similar to MakerDAO’s DAI, exceptions are short periods (typically minutes/hours) between liquidation of Vaults (e.g. due to theft of BTC or under-collateralization) and rebalancing through Interlay’s network participants.

iBTC is developed by the team behind the Interlay Network, led by Alexei Zamyatin and Dominik Harz. The two met in 2017 during their PhDs at Imperial College London where they were the first researchers of the cryptocurrency lab. Both have been researching Bitcoin and Ethereum since 2015/16, authoring over 30 papers with over 100 citations. Both regularly presented their work at Bitcoin and Ethereum conferences, including DevCon IV, EthCC, Building on Bitcoin, and Breaking Bitcoin.

The technology behind iBTC - the “XCLAIM framework” - was published as a paper at the top-tier, peer-reviewed IT security conference IEEE S&P. The XCLAIM paper, first released in 2018, describes the first-ever protocol to move cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin to DeFi platforms like Ethereum and Polkadot in an economically trustless and decentralized manner.

In summary, the two main properties of the Bitcoin bridge are decentralization and economic trustlessness.

• Decentralization is achieved by allowing anyone to register as a Vault operator, without requiring any form of permission. The bridge is also censorship-resistant: the minting process is non-interactive, meaning there is no action that must or can be taken by Vault operators to interfere with or prohibit creation of iBTC.

• (Economic) Security is achieved by requiring Vault operators to over-collateralize their BTC positions and cryptographically prove correct redemption of BTC. Liquidations ensure that users can always redeem BTC or are reimbursed in collateral, facing no economic damage.

Economic security holds under the assumption that (i) the bridge is aware of the current exchange rate between BTC and collateral assets (i.e., assumes robust price feeds), and (ii) that the value of the collateral does not devalue faster than the time it takes a liquidator to complete a successful arbitrage trade, i.e., include the liquidation transaction in the Interlay chain and exchange the claimed collateral for BTC or iBTC.