Computing on Bitcoin #70
December 19, 2025 - Week 51
Welcome to a new edition of Computing on Bitcoin news!
The Bitcoin scaling space keeps evolving at an incredible pace, driven by a growing community of builders and researchers focused on computation, interoperability, and decentralized security, all pushing Bitcoin beyond its traditional limits.
Let’s dive in.
GOAT Network shared a post in which core contributor Kevin Liu outlines an update to its BitVM-based design that shortens the challenge period from 14 days to around one day.
Serial founder and GOAT Network core contributor @kevinliub explains one of the major improvements our team has made over the BitVM2 design: reducing the 14-day challenge period to ~1 day.
— GOAT Network 🟡 (@GOATRollup) December 17, 2025
This removes the main capital-efficiency bottleneck in BitVM2 and makes the design much… pic.twitter.com/2t8rfKQCZa
A new video explores how Bitcoin can integrate with regulated financial systems via BitVM, highlighting Metallicus’ BitVM testnet on Metal Blockchain to enable compliant interaction with bank-issued stablecoins and payments, without changing Bitcoin’s base layer.
Bitcoin is entering the banking system: BitVM, Metallicus and the future of cryptocurrencies.
youtube.com/@BruceStewart
In this video, we analyze how Metallicus is integrating a BitVM testnet into the Metal Blockchain to explore secure and compliant ways for Bitcoin to interact with bank-backed stablecoins, real-time payments, and institutional financial infrastructure, without modifying Bitcoin's base layer.
IOHK published a recap of UPLC 2025, a conference at the University of Edinburgh focused on the evolution of Cardano’s programming languages and smart contract tooling. The event included discussions on formal verification, zk-SNARK integration, and compiling UPLC to RISC-V for execution on BitVMX, informing the roadmap toward Plutus V4.
iog.io/news
🔗
UPLC 2025: building the future of Cardano’s programming languages
Development is often a solitary pursuit, but true innovation requires collision. The inaugural UPLC Programming Language Conference (UPLC 2025) offered a rare moment of convergence for the Plutus Core ecosystem. It was about the ‘hallway track’ – spontaneous deep dives and debates that happen when a diverse community gathers in one room.
Tycho Onnasch, Co-founder of Zest Protocol, claims that BitVM3 is on track for mainnet in 2026, marking a major step for programmable Bitcoin.
BitVM3 will hit mainnet next year
— tycho.btc (@TychoOnnasch) December 16, 2025
2026 is going to be an amazing year for programmable Bitcoin 🟧
BitMEX Research published a detailed examination of the long-known “64-byte transaction” quirk in Bitcoin, showing how such transactions can be confused with Merkle tree internals and potentially exploited to deceive SPV clients.
hozk.io/news
🔗
The BOB Report (Dec 16, 2025)
Here we report on the progress of the @build_on_bob ecosystem, documenting recent significant releases, technical breakthroughs and general updates.
BOB implemented Cut-and-Choose for BitVM3 using Verifiable Secret Sharing Schemes and adaptor signatures, with related transactions submitted to @Bitcoin mainnet.
Thanks for reading this edition of Computing on Bitcoin News. As Bitcoin innovation moves faster than ever, we’ll keep highlighting the ideas, tools, and people building its future.
Wishing you a joyful holiday season from all the Fairgate team!
Until next time!