Rollups have emerged as a popular solution for scaling Bitcoin, offering an off-chain layer two that overcomes the liquidity limitations of the Lightning Network. While rollups were initially developed for Ethereum, there is now a focus on porting them to Bitcoin. A rollup functions by holding the balances of all users in a single account or UTXO, with a merkle root committing to all current balances. Users can unilaterally exit a rollup by proving their account is part of the merkle tree. For rollup transactions to be valid and included on the blockchain, zero-knowledge proofs (ZKPs) must be included to verify their authorization. However, the challenge lies in ensuring data availability for users to withdraw. The data can either be directly posted on the Bitcoin blockchain or stored elsewhere, such as on other blockchains. Each option presents trade-offs in terms of scalability, security, and sovereignty. Using the Bitcoin blockchain for data availability introduces a scalability ceiling, while using an external system raises security and sovereignty concerns. The ideal rollup implementation for Bitcoin remains a challenging decision between these two options.



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