Anduro, a multi-sidechain platform on Bitcoin that was incubated by Marathon Digital Holdings (“Marathon”), and BOB (Build on Bitcoin), a leading Bitcoin layer-two builder, are collaborating to develop ALYS, a new Bitcoin sidechain that is designed to meet and expand the institutional demand for applications and use cases on Bitcoin.
ALYS is a permissionless chain that is designed to support the broader vision of creating a Bitcoin sidechain ecosystem that intends to make Bitcoin the hub for institutional blockchain adoption. It combines the full support for the Ethereum Virtual Machine, while leveraging Bitcoin’s Proof-of-Work security via OptiMine (Optimistically Sequenced Merged Mining), a new merged-mining protocol co-developed by BOB and Marathon.
Because ALYS is powered by the BOB stack, it benefits from industry leading infrastructure which includes support from 350+ EVM wallets, block explorers, account abstraction, social sign-in, data analytics, and oracles. It also benefits from both high throughput and fast block times while maximizing its anchor to Bitcoin.
“Bitcoin is experiencing a renaissance,” said Alexei Zamyatin, co-founder of BOB. “Even before the ETF approvals, institutional interest in Bitcoin was on the rise. Bitcoin now has approximately 300 million users; it is the most widely adopted digital asset; and, its market cap has surpassed $1 trillion. Instead of asking, ‘Why build on Bitcoin?’ the real question today is, ‘Why would you build anywhere else?’ By partnering with Anduro, which was incubated by Marathon, we believe ALYS can emerge as the best-in-class product for BTC-interested institutions.”
ALYS is designed to be a natural extension of Bitcoin. It utilizes Bitcoin-pegged native assets, Bitcoin’s security, as well as incentives tied to sustaining Bitcoin’s Proof-of-Work consensus model.
Initial use cases for ALYS that may meet the current institutional demand for Bitcoin applications and expand future demand include real-world-asset tokenization, hash rate financial products (PoWFi), decentralized physical infrastructure (DePIN), loyalty, and payments.
Jullian Duran, product lead at Marathon Digital Holdings, added, “Our objective is to make ALYS the leading chain for the industry’s premier applications. To help realize that objective, Anduro has partnered with BOB, who has been working with Bitcoin and layer-2 solutions since 2016. With their protocol knowledge and developer experience, we believe that we can build ALYS into one of the leading vehicles that encourages more institutional adoption of Bitcoin.”
ALYS is currently in alpha stage and is open to developers for early testing. A larger launch is planned to coincide with “Bitcoin Summer” and is expected to take place during the third quarter of this year.
Like-minded developers and interested parties are encouraged to reach out to the Anduro team at anduro@mara.com.
