PowPeg Boost with Flyover Protocol Integration

Some Terms Used:

RBTC: Rootstock Bitcoin, the token used on the Rootstock sidechain.
BTC: Bitcoin, the token used on the Bitcoin blockchain.
Pegin: The act of bridging BTC to RBTC.
Pegout: The act of bridging RBTC to BTC.
Flyover: A decentralized protocol that introduces the benefits of speed to the PowPeg application by allowing liquidity providers to advance funds to users.

Past

Previously, a native pegin transaction took approximately 17 hours to complete, while a native pegout transaction took around 34 hours. This was because transfers from Bitcoin to RSK required 100 Bitcoin block confirmations, while transfers from RSK to Bitcoin required 4,000 RSK block confirmations!

PowPeg is an application that facilitates the bridging of Bitcoin (BTC) to Rootstock Bitcoin (RBTC) and vice versa. Native transactions using the PowPeg application were significantly slow. To improve transaction speed, last year, Rootstock announced the integration of the Flyover protocol into the PowPeg app. After about a year of building and iterating, Rootstock's PowPeg app has finally integrated the Flyover protocol and introduced Fast Mode.

Fast Mode

Fast Mode is a secure, powerful, and super-fast way to bridge BTC (Bitcoin) to RBTC (Rootstock Bitcoin). It provides a quick and frictionless method of bridging RBTC to BTC. Fast Mode is an implementation of the Flyover protocol within the PowPeg app and is significantly faster than PowPeg’s native transfer mode.

Key Features and Benefits

Faster Transfers: Flyover bypasses the long wait times of PowPeg by using liquidity providers that advance funds before the full confirmation process.
Liquidity Bridge Contract (LBC): A new smart contract in RSK that facilitates Flyover transactions.
Security and Risk Handling: While PowPeg must maintain strict consistency, LPs can tolerate higher risk, allowing for faster, more flexible transactions.
Smart Contract Integration: Flyover allows LPs to execute smart contract calls on behalf of users, further extending RSK’s functionality.

Flyover relies on a trustless intermediary, which is the liquidity provider, to send funds to the user through a smart contract called the Liquidity Bridge Contract (LBC). Simply put, the more liquidity available, the faster the transactions.

The new Liquidity Provider added to the system is now offering 10 BTC / 10 RBTC, doubling the previous capacity of 5 BTC / 5 RBTC due to growing demand. With the increased liquidity, we can expect a significant reduction in transaction times from hours to minutes (~98% faster).

Security

The Flyover protocol doesn’t sacrifice speed for security. Even with significantly reduced wait times, it provides the same security guarantees as the Powpeg and uses trustless intermediaries(Liquidity Providers). These LPs take the risk of advancing payment in BTC or RBTC for you.

The best thing about the use of these trustless mechanisms is that throughout the transfer process, they are never in custody of your funds and in worst case scenarios, the Flyover protocol reverts to a regular Powpeg transfer to ensure that you never lose your funds.

Visuals

The Flyover protocol is currently the fastest way to bridge BTC to RBTC. It’s very similar to the previous Powpeg method but it records shorter wait times because of its pool of trustless Liquidity providers.

Walkthrough

So, Ebuka has this company called Resla that sells custom electric bicycles. Ebuka is crypto-savvy and accepts payments in RBTC. Let me walk you through the fastest way of sending RBTC to Ebuka by pegging your BTC.

List of supported wallets for a pegin transaction

Trezor
Ledger
Leather
Xverse
Enkrypt

Visit app.2wp.rootstock.io or powpeg.rootstock.io

STEP 1

Click the BTC TO RBTC BUTTON and connect your wallet

STEP 2

Fill the form. You should see one similar to this

STEP 3

Select Fast Mode

STEP 4

Click on the send button after confirming the information on the transfer summary

NOTE: The minimum amount of Bitcoin that can be converted in RBTC is 0.005 BTC.

Looking Forward

The PowPeg Fast Mode comes at a good time. As blockchain ecosystems expand and the need for seamless cross-chain interoperability increases, users can now complete transfers between the Bitcoin blockchain and the Rootstock sidechain more quickly. This new reality brings a lot of possibilities—from DeFi applications to the integration of the Rootstock network into DApps.

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PowPeg's Massive Boost: Flyover Protocol Integration