Avalanche, a smart contract platform in the blockchain industry has now announced its new bridge that adds the Native Bitcoin support. This new BTC bridging can only be accessed through the Core Browser Extension.
Avalanche Bridge Adds Native Bitcoin Support
The Avalanche Bridge which was launched back in August 2021, enabled the transfers of ERC20 assets between the Ethereum and Avalanche networks. This smart contract has now looked into expanding its arms across the largest cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, by now adding support of the Native Bitcoin to its Avalanche Bridge.
How The Avalanche Bitcoin Bridging Can Help
This new bridge support will be a good help for a lot of people who would love to make use of Bitcoin but don’t, because of the Bitcoin network and its slow transactions and expensive gas fees. This Bridging, just as it supports quick, secure, and low-cost asset transfers between the Avalanche and Ethereum networks, would also support the same for the newly launched Native Bitcoin bridging. This bridging would also enable Bitcoin holders to access substantial earnings directly, and gain opportunities on various DeFi protocols, while still also retaining Bitcoin (BTC) on their portfolio.
Just like the Avalanche bridge helped the facilitation and immediate growth of the active Avalanche DeFi ecosystem and made it accomplish more than $50 billion in transfers in under a year since launch. The functionality of this new Bitcoin bridging is aimed to unlock over half a trillion dollars of value on the Bitcoin network for use within the Avalanche DeFi ecosystem, and also broaden more sets of offerings available on the Avalanche network.
The Only Way To Access This Bitcoin Bridge
Apparently, Avalanche has only made this BTC bridging thing available only on the Core Browser Extension and nowhere else, not even on Metamask. This is because the Core Wallet Extension was custom-built purposely to support the Bitcoin and the Avalanche Bridge and to also rectify any technical problems of connecting the Bitcoin and EVM chains within a wallet. Users can download the Core Browser Extension to be able to access this BTC bridging.
Avalanche Also Introduces New Software Guard Extension
Relating to the release of this new BTC bridging, Avalanche also introduces a new Intel SGX application (Software Guard Extension). The Intel SGX application comprises a trusted codebase that works within an enclave, and an untrusted codebase that runs outside. This application is developed to support the cross-chain Bitcoin transfers, so as to boost the Warden of Avalanche set from 4 to 8 and upgrade the approval structure from 3 of 4 to 6 of 8.
Avalanche also introduced 4 new Wardens, to join their existing Warden partners. The 4 new Wardens are Ankr, Blockdadmon, Chainstack, and Protofire.
What is the Avalanche Bridge?
The Avalanche Bridge is a service that was initially launched back in August 2021, this service is developed to support quick, secure, and low-cost asset transfers between the Avalanche and Ethereum networks. The Bridge leverages Intel SGX (Software Guard Extensions) to enable the creation of a secure service (enclave) resistant to interference and privacy from the Bridge Operator.
