Improve – Earlybirds Invest https://earlybirdsinvest.com Latest Crypto News Fri, 29 Aug 2025 10:31:57 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.8 https://i0.wp.com/earlybirdsinvest.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/cropped-New-Project-2024-12-17T235703.455.png?fit=32%2C32&ssl=1 Improve – Earlybirds Invest https://earlybirdsinvest.com 32 32 240146708 Protocol Update 003 — Improve UX https://earlybirdsinvest.com/protocol-update-003-improve-ux/ https://earlybirdsinvest.com/protocol-update-003-improve-ux/#respond Fri, 29 Aug 2025 10:31:56 +0000 https://earlybirdsinvest.com/protocol-update-003-improve-ux/

A few months ago, we announced a renewed focus of Protocol on three strategic initiatives: Scale L1, Scale blobs, Improve UX. Following previous updates on Scale L1 and Scale blobs, this note relates to our “Improve UX” track, and its mission:

Seamless, secure and permissionless experience across the Ethereum ecosystem, for individuals and institutions.

We see interoperability, and related projects presented in this note, as the highest leverage opportunity within the broader UX domain over the next 6-12 months, in our position as a public, core Ethereum R&D group.

The near-term strategy focuses on areas we believe will continue to be fundamental components of interop: Intent-based architecture and general message-passing. For both, our aim is to focus on clear, measurable protocol metrics to drive down latency and cost, while increasing security and trustlessness. These metrics include: Signatures per operation, time-to-inclusion, time-to-fast-confirmation, time-to-finality, and time-to-L2-settlement.

We divide our work in three streams:

  1. Initialisation: Make intents more modular and lightweight, and strengthen shared standards for seamless and secure movement of assets across all chains.
  2. Acceleration: Drive latency and costs down, accelerate efforts for faster inclusion, confirmation, finality, and settlement.
  3. Finalisation: Integrate frontier consensus (fast finality) and cryptography (SNARKs with real-time proving) to unlock fast, permissionless crosschain messaging.

Why focus on interop?

The Ethereum ecosystem is composed of our L1 mainnet and the many L2s that permissionlessly extend Ethereum beyond the L1’s boundaries. These extensions provide critical entry points and scaling opportunities for Ethereum, yet also bring their own challenges, chief among them the pressures of fragmentation on the Ethereum experience and its economy.

There are many potential definitions of what it means to “solve interop” and the extent to which interop is already solved. While much of the infra and tech is ready (or soon will be), there are several steps remaining to actually get these solutions into the hands of all users and inject it seamlessly into their daily UX.

At its simplified core, the key ingredients to accelerate interop boil down to unlocking fast crosschain message-passing and standardisation. Currently, message-passing is partially bottlenecked by slow settlement times. While work continues to remove these bottlenecks, we have infrastructure we can leverage today to solve the most common user flows and provide a unified experience across the Ethereum ecosystem.

Still, interop is not the only UX issue facing Ethereum users. At the end of this note, we highlight distinct EF initiatives dealing with different aspects of user-centric development, with a stronger accent on security and privacy. Beyond, many more opportunities to improve Ethereum UX will be sought and delivered by projects in our ecosystem. We look forward to celebrating their achievements and continuing to collaborate in order to strengthen the core properties of Ethereum.

Stream 1: Initialisation

Intents are one mechanism to improve UX for crosschain interactions, abstracting away the complexities of crosschain mechanics and distilling the outcome of an action. We define intents as a high-level expression of what a user wants to achieve onchain, without prescribing the exact low-level transactions that should be executed. Intents are declarative (“I want this outcome, I’m flexible about how it’s achieved”), whereas transactions are prescriptive (“call this contract with these parameters”).

The intent layer sits between order-flow interfaces (wallets) and deeper interoperability infrastructure (bridges, either canonical or private). As such, it is a strategic point to support, leveraging both the wallets’ expertise to provide the best UX and the bridges’ ability to settle the many assets deployed across Ethereum.

Yet intent protocols can often introduce trust assumptions on solver intermediaries, which can create censorship vectors and privacy issues. Other approaches, like crosschain messaging bridges or the Ethereum Interoperability Layer (EIL), also advance interop without solver dependencies. Taken together, these efforts broaden the design space for interoperability.

Project #1: Open Intents Framework

Takeaway: Laying down the foundation of neutral infrastructure supporting intents-based crosschain protocols.

The Open Intents Framework (OIF) provides modular infrastructure for each of the intent layers: Origination, fulfillment, settlement and rebalancing. It is an extensible framework laying the groundwork for further refinements, towards more secure, cheaper and faster settlement of user interactions across chains. The Open Intents Framework is a collaborative effort including core contributors from the Ethereum Foundation plus Across, Arbitrum, Hyperlane, LI.FI, OpenZeppelin, Taiko, Wonderland, and many others – a meaningful step forward for a unified yet differentiated approach to interoperability.

The OIF was built from the ground up to be as lightweight and customisable as possible, in order to accommodate different requirements and use cases across Ethereum’s ecosystem of L2s. This modularity and customization allows for easy swapping of each piece of the intents stack, to make it easy to switch out mechanisms which may have weaker trust assumptions or security guarantees. The OIF is committed to improve settlement guarantees including security, censorship resistance and privacy.

Production-ready smart contract implementations of the Open Intents Framework are live today with architecture diagrams and developer documentation. Through Q3 2025, contributing teams are finalising smart contract foundations and standards, completing auditing, and adding a few more validation mechanisms. In Q4 2025, the OIF will have completed the open-source solver and crosschain validation module. Teams will have access to the full reference solver implementation with configurable chain subscriptions, automated rebalancing capabilities, and modular validation supporting major crosschain verification protocols. New chains will be able to deploy production solvers immediately upon launch, eliminating the traditional months-long integration cycles.

Project #2: Ethereum Interoperability Layer

Takeaway: A trustless, censorship-resistant transport layer, making cross-L2 transactions feel like single-chain transactions.

The Ethereum Interoperability Layer (EIL) focuses on making Ethereum feel like one chain again, without compromising on CROPS values (censorship-resistance, open-source, privacy and security).

EIL is led by the Chain and Account Abstraction team, creators of the ERC-4337 protocol. EIL is a trustless cross-L2 interop layer, enabling seamless multichain transactions while keeping the user in control, preserving privacy and Ethereum-level censorship resistance. While intents are a declarative abstraction (“I want this outcome”), the Ethereum Interoperability Layer focuses on prescriptive execution via transactions (“here are the exact calls to make”) without trusting intermediaries.

A public design document will be released in October, with more details provided at Devconnect.

Project #3: Interop standards

Takeaway: Reducing user and developer friction across the stack with common protocols for crosschain operations.

Finally, a large set of standards will support the expansion of OIF and EIL, establishing unified design principles from the user to interop backends. These standards include Interoperable addresses (ERC-7828 and ERC-7930), asset consolidation (ERC-7811) and multi-calls (ERC-5792) for improved wallet and app UX, as well as neutral message-passing infrastructure, such as an intent standard (ERC-7683) and a common messaging interface (ERC-7786).

To date, ERC-7683 has been reviewed and revised by a group of contributors from Across, Uniswap, LI.FI, and OpenZeppelin. The main change is a higher-level interface redesign to support multiple intent origination flow, specifically for new flows such as Resource Locks and direct-to-filler transfers. In the spirit of flexibility and modularity, the revised standard will also include different auction mechanisms (e.g., Dutch, first-come first-serve) and allow for compatibility with other open-source initiatives like multi-chain inputs and interoperable addresses.

Stream 2: Acceleration

While Stream 1 builds basic services required for a neutral, user-centric and secure interoperability stack, Stream 2 aims to raise the speed limits on every node and link of the network. We focus on four key metrics detailed in the sections below: L1 time-to-inclusion, L1 time-to-strong-confirmation, L1 time-to-finality and L2 time-to-settlement.

Project #4: Fast L1 Confirmation Rule

Takeaway: Receive fast and strong L1 confirmations in 15-30 seconds instead of waiting 13-19 minutes for full finality.

Faster confirmation times are consistently cited as one of the biggest requirements for better interop across the Ethereum ecosystem. The structure of Ethereum’s Proof-of-Stake mechanism has attesters voting on the current state of the chain every slot, with full finality trailing by many slots. However, there is already a way to get faster confirmation with provable safety, but this is not well-known and usable at the moment.

Brief overview of the fast confirmation rule: Utilises the accumulated votes of attesters to provide a lower (but still strong) degree of confirmation at a much earlier point in time, while full finality is later obtained (the same exact way it is today). Under well-specified models of an adversary, a faster confirmation rule offers provable safety and represents an attractive option for mechanisms relying otherwise on full finality. We will make this fast confirmation rule usable by implementing it in all consensus clients and work to integrate its endpoint with projects interested in decreasing latency for their users.

Roberto Saltini and Mikhail Kalinin (Consensys) currently lead the specification of the fast confirmation rule and its proof of correctness. The TxRx team (Consensys) is implementing the rule in Teku, while Terence Tsao (Offchain Labs) has provided an early implementation for Prysm and Harsh Pratap Singh (EPF Fellow) is working on a Lighthouse implementation. With further simplifications expected to the specs, and a simpler path to implementation, we target Q1 2026 for availability of the fast confirmation rule in all consensus layer clients, and will work with partner projects for integration.

Project #5: Shorter L1 slots

Takeaway: Performing the research and engineering groundwork for reducing L1 slot times asap.

Significant UX improvements are obtained from shorter L1 slots, and we aim to initially target 2x shorter slots, from 12 seconds to 6 seconds. Halving the slot time not only halves time-to-L1-inclusion for L1 users, but additionally halves the time-to-strong-confirmation and the time-to-finality for consumers of these confirmation rules. This allows faster settlement, less capital in flight, and reduced fees and latency for users of interoperability protocols, as well as a greater incentive to use secure L1 settlement.

The project requires multiple workstreams: Robust data analysis for network performance and centralisation pressures (currently involving Maria Inês Silva, Sam Calder-Masson and Toni Wahrstätter), specifications of consensus and execution layer changes (involving Dankrad Feist, Justin Traglia and Milos Stankovic) and client implementations (early work from Milos Stankovic and Jihoon Song). Much of this work is independent from slot restructuring efforts such as moving to EIP-7732, enshrined Proposer–Builder Separation.

Project #6: Shorter L2 settlement

Takeaway: Reducing latency to move assets out of rollups decreases rebalancing costs and increases service quality of intents.

Optimistic rollups settle in the order of 7 days, once a long enough challenge window has remained open to contest the published state of the rollup. Shorter withdrawal windows allows for faster movement of assets from the rollup, and lowers rebalancing costs for solvers, i.e., lowers cost for users of intent protocols. It is a key lever for intents to settle greater volumes at cheaper fees. Much progress here is already underway thanks to the efforts of many across L2 and ZKEVM teams. We will work to support optimistic rollups interested in implementing ZK-based real-time proving, and/or moving to a secure 2-out-of-3 faster settlement mechanism.

Stream 3: Finalisation

The final frontier of interoperability on Ethereum is attained with two pieces of technology: Real-time proving and fast finality. Our aim will be to accelerate research and prototype initiatives to bring forward the timelines of each. To highlight the open-ended nature of this stream, we call projects here “Explorations”.

Exploration #1: Interoperability snarkification

All Protocol activities must reckon with the acceleration of SNARKs towards broad availability. For instance, the “Scale L1” track plans early work towards the progressive integration of this technology in the core of the Ethereum protocol. Likewise, it is not possible today to ignore the snarkification of everything, in particular as it relates to interoperability solutions.

With a robust intents-based approach to crosschain UX, the objective is to continue accelerating and solidifying the backends of these systems, to the point of lowest friction. Fast settlement allows for fast liquidity rebalancing, cutting costs for intent users. And beyond reduced costs and latency, we believe that snarkification has the potential to redraw the map of asset issuance, bridge primitives and crosschain programmability, enabling among other things synchronous composability with L1. Getting ahead of this revolution puts us in control to steer our network towards the futures that we desire.

With some SNARK-based versions of the faster L2 settlement mechanism described in Project #6, optimistic rollups have the potential to unlock a “fast root” against which their state can be assumed to be settled. Yet it is also possible to permissionlessly obtain this fast root, and “zkSettle” against it. In particular, this form of settlement may be introduced as a mechanism available through the Open Intents Framework (Project #1), ensuring the most robust form of intent settlement and maximal user protection.

Exploration #2: Faster L1 finality

We propose exploring all paths to bring finality forward from today’s 13-19 minutes to the order of seconds. First, shorter slots as described in Project #5 will halve the finality time, bringing us to 7-10 minutes. Second, beacon chain changes could accelerate it further, down to 1-2 minutes. Finally, replacing our current consensus protocol, Gasper, with a leaner and faster protocol, will yield an extra order of magnitude improvement, with target finality obtained in under 10 seconds.

The EF Protocol Consensus team is working on several projects illuminating the decision tree for a robust, performant and decentralised consensus protocol. 3-slot-finality (3SF) is a well-understood protocol obtaining strong safety with dynamic availability, a combination unique to protocols such as Ethereum’s. Explorations in newer classes of protocols such as Kudzu, Hydrangea or Alpenglow reveal opportunities for improvements on 3SF with lower latency and higher throughput, but must be designed for Ethereum’s unique properties.


Improving UX has grown to become a multi-faceted effort, with several distinct streams of work tackling issues from interoperability, security and privacy. With this note, we’re clarifying our own interoperability work, and invite you to find more details on Trillion Dollar Security and the Kohaku privacy wallet below.

Trillion Dollar Security

Led by Fredrik Svantes and Josh Stark, the Trillion Dollar Security (1TS) initiative is an ecosystem-wide effort to upgrade Ethereum’s security to help bring the world onchain. Phase 2 of 1TS tackles UX, including better models of clear signing, key management and wallet security and privacy standards.

Kohaku

Led by Nicolas Consigny and Vitalik Buterin, the Kohaku project develops the necessary technology to power wallets that are private across their entire stack. The project is developed in collaboration between the EF and various external teams. Kohaku’s core goals are (i) an SDK that exposes strong privacy/security primitives and (ii) a power‑user wallet that ships on top of that SDK. In a first phase the project will focus on the browser extension that targets advanced users introducing privacy and security features. The extension is designed to preserve privacy while reducing trust assumptions and eliminating unnecessary external dependencies. The project will ship with Helios lightclient, a privacy‑service abstraction, support for private addresses, native private balances & private sends.

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Can Bitcoin improve election integrity? https://earlybirdsinvest.com/can-bitcoin-improve-election-integrity/ https://earlybirdsinvest.com/can-bitcoin-improve-election-integrity/#respond Fri, 15 Aug 2025 15:13:36 +0000 https://earlybirdsinvest.com/can-bitcoin-improve-election-integrity/

Can Bitcoin improve election integrity?

The adoption of Simple Proof, a Bitcoin-based time stamp system used by Georgia Screen County last year, shows notable advances in election security. A method that provides a record of tampering and independently verifiable results without revealing sensitive data, anchors the cryptographic hash of election documents in a distributed ledger of Bitcoin. In doing so, it ensures transparency, ensures protection against post-election change, and reduces reliance on vulnerable centralized systems. This approach reflects Simple Proof’s previous success in Guatemala’s 2023 presidential election. This is a process that protected more than 150,000 tally sheets amid political tensions and institutional mistrust, and was later recorded in an immutable democracy. In both cases, it shows that decentralized blockchain-based verification can increase trust in democratic processes. It serves as a scalable model to secure elections around the world and encourages broader reforms in public record management, but its global impact depends on the willingness of authorities to embrace transparency..

Can Bitcoin have an unchanging influence on democracy?

In November 2024, Screen County, Georgia became the first county in the United States to secure election results using the Bitcoin blockchain via Simple Proof’s Opentimestamps-based system. This approach involves encrypting the official results “hash”, creating a unique digital fingerprint, and embedding this into a Bitcoin transaction. This method confirms that the results existed in their original form at a particular time without revealing their content. By fixing the hash to Bitcoin’s decentralized, immutable ledger, the county has acquired verifiable and tampered records that all parties can independently confirm. This has been accomplished without requiring election officials to have specialized blockchain knowledge, demonstrating that such security measures can be implemented with minimal operational disruption.

Security benefits lie in the combination of transparency and confidentiality. The hash-only process ensures that anyone can see the document when it is recorded, while still maintaining the underlying data, such as voter roles and detailed results, remain private. This means attempting to modify a record after the timestamp is made detectable, making retroactive tampering virtually impossible without detection. Bitcoin ledgers are maintained by thousands of independent nodes around the world, so a single authority cannot modify or erase a proof. In the context of elections, this decentralized validation model reduces reliance on centralized IT systems that are more vulnerable to operational and system failures.

The system’s operations are based on established cryptographic structures such as the Merkle Tree, and can efficiently prove the existence of many documents using a single blockchain entry. For Screen County, this meant that all relevant election documents could be covered with one time stamp, providing a scalable way to protect large datasets. Anyone with the original file can later check that it has not been changed, comparing it with the hash fixed to the blockchain. This evidence ensures that the verification process does not depend on both simple evidence and county, and does not rely on continuing trust in any organization.

The broader importance of this approach lies in its potential to enhance democratic resilience. Elections rely on public trust, and if doubts about the integrity of the outcome cannot be answered, that trust will be eroded. By allowing citizens, journalists, or observers to ensure that official results are exactly the same as election night, the system provides a strong check on misinformation, contested outcomes, and politically motivated allegations. In an age of rising disinformation and technical threats to data integrity, anchoring election records to decentralized and permitted networks provides robust, independent and verifiable protection for one of the most important processes of democracy.

Are there any similarities to Simple Proof’s past efforts regarding the Guatemala election?

Guatemala’s 2023 presidential election marked a pivotal moment in the country’s struggle to maintain election integrity amidst political turbulence. The country faces deep trust issues in its voting system, particularly during the 2019 election, which caused widespread confusion and allegations of manipulation, as the official outcome system crashed on election night. These events, combined with broader regional trends of political actors making unconfirmed claims of fraud, erod public belief in democratic processes. By 2023, concerns over centralized and opaque election data processing had reached the point where tampered, verifiable solutions were urgently needed to prevent interference and restore reliability.

Simple Proof addressed this challenge by deploying an Opentimestamps-based system to protect digital tally sheets from all voting stations. Approximately 150,000 images of these paper records were hashed, creating their own encrypted fingerprints and pinned to the Bitcoin blockchain, providing an immutable record of their existence at certain times. This allows anyone with access to the original to detect attempts to modify the digital file after election night. Importantly, the system is an advanced digital operating technology that protects it from new vulnerabilities introduced by centralized IT systems and advanced digital operating technologies, while maintaining the transparency of Guatemala’s traditionally decentralized voting counting processes, and includes the potential misuse of artificial intelligence.

The impact of Simple Proof’s role in Guatemala has expanded beyond technical protection measures. The development occurred during a tense post-election period when a physical tally sheet was controversially seized by the Attorney General’s office, promoting protests and fears of political interference. As the blockchain anchor proof remains verifiable, independent observers and citizen groups were able to confirm that official results matched election night records, even in the face of institutional pressures. This resilience has been documented Unchanging democracyA short film that shows how Bitcoin-based decentralized technology was used to protect election transparency. The documentary not only highlighted the technical process, but also captured the social and political importance of maintaining verifiable truths in a contested democratic environment.

The similarities with Screven County’s recent adoption of simple evidence are impressive. In both cases, it includes communities seeking to strengthen public confidence in election outcomes through independently verifiable, tamperable records. In Guatemala, urgency was shaped by a history of contested outcomes and systematic vulnerability, but Screen County reflects positive steps to prevent such a crisis before it arises. In both contexts, the Bitcoin blockchain acts as a neutral, decentralized arbiter of truth, allowing citizens to see that official records have not been changed. Together, these implementations demonstrate that the same core principles of transparency, decentralization and public empowerment can be effectively applied across vastly different political situations and landscapes.

How can this affect political processes around the world?

By using open, decentralized ledgers such as Bitcoin to lock verifiable evidence of election data, governments can move towards models where the integrity of official results is no longer dependent on central authorities and their own systems. This makes it much more difficult for a single actor to manipulate records without detection, whether domestically or foreign. In doing so, this approach provides a universal standard for election verification. Election verification transcends differences in national infrastructure and can be independently verified by anyone with the necessary data.

The global impact is not only reducing the chances of fraud. In many democracies, realistic or perceived tampering often promoted political unrest, eroded trust in the institution, and even caused violence. If voters can independently confirm that no election results have changed from the moment they are confirmed, disputes over vote counting could be resolved at a higher speed and reliability. This helps to ease tensions during periods of political sensitivity, reduce the spread of misinformation and limit the ability of political actors to weaponize doubts about the legitimacy of elections for their own interests.

Such a model could also encourage broader reforms in public record management and enhance transparency in other areas of governance. The same blockchain timestamps used in election outcomes can be applied to legal judgments, legislative records, public spending data, and historical archives. This creates a durable tamper-proof audit trail that increases accountability well beyond the election cycle. Countries working on corruption, weak rule of law, or politically influenced judicial systems find tools to diversify trust with this technology, ensuring that certain classes of records are beyond the scope of political interference.

However, global influence ultimately depends on political will. As Guatemala’s experience shows, such systems are only effective when authorities allow and support transparency. Screven County’s model serves as a blueprint for democratic resilience, demonstrating that even small jurisdictions can pioneer technological protection measures with international relevance. By demonstrating that safe, citizen-verified election data is technically viable and operationally simple, it could encourage adoption in countries where confidence in political systems is strained, and reshaping expectations for election integrity around the world.

]]> https://earlybirdsinvest.com/can-bitcoin-improve-election-integrity/feed/ 0 53344 How can BitVMX Observers help you improve your Lightning network? https://earlybirdsinvest.com/how-can-bitvmx-observers-help-you-improve-your-lightning-network/ https://earlybirdsinvest.com/how-can-bitvmx-observers-help-you-improve-your-lightning-network/#respond Sat, 26 Jul 2025 08:08:18 +0000 https://earlybirdsinvest.com/how-can-bitvmx-observers-help-you-improve-your-lightning-network/

How can BitVMX Observers help you improve your Lightning network?

Watchtowers is a specialized Bitcoin Lightning Network service that protects users from fraud by monitoring blockchains and intervening when outdated channel conditions are broadcast maliciously. Their importance lies in protecting users who may not be able to respond to offline or conflicts in real time, a key vulnerability in Lightning’s off-chain payment model. However, traditional watchtower designs often rely on centralized, reliable parties that raise censorship and privacy concerns. BITVMX introduces a new solution to this problem by allowing the eye to function as a programmable and verifiable agent. Their actions can be implemented through proof of fraud, greatly reducing the trust required by a single operator. Unlike previous models, BitVMX monitoring is transparent, auditable, resistant to fraud, and addresses Oracle issues in a narrowly defined and enforceable way. This innovation could enhance the security and decentralization of the Lightning network, and is important to make it viable for popular mobile-first adoption.

What are wardens and why are they important?

Watchtowers is a specialized service from Bitcoin Lightning Network designed to monitor blockchains on behalf of users and take action if counterparties broadcast an outdated channel state and attempt to cheate. Because Lightning networks rely on off-chain payment channels, both parties must maintain an accurate and up-to-date view of shared channel balance. In the event of a dispute, the correct state will be carried out by publishing the latest commitment transaction on-chain. However, if one party is offline or unavailable, there is a risk of losing funds if the other party broadcasts an old favor. The watcher acts as an outsourced guardian, constantly scanning the blockchain and broadcasting penalty transactions if it detects fraud.

The need for monitoring arises from the security trade-offs inherent in Lightning’s design. Users gain speed and privacy by resolving transactions from the chain, but they must stay online intermittently to protect against channel violations. This requirement is unrealistic for most users, especially those using mobile or intermittently connected devices. The surveillance allows users to delegate this responsibility while maintaining security assurances. Over the past few years, implementations of several surveillance devices such as LND, C-Lightning, and Electrum have shown that this concept is technically viable. However, most current customers are centralized or operated by trusted third parties, raising concerns about censorship, availability and dependence on specific providers.

Promoting distributed oversighters presents a complex set of challenges. To be effective without creating trust dependencies, you need to be encouraged to act honestly with unsightly people, but at the same time you can’t learn private user information. This is complicated by the so-called “Oracle problems” of blockchain systems. If a smart contract or off-chain system requires actual data (or in this case off-chain monitoring), it must trust and report it correctly with external entities. Observers are a type of Oracle, although they play a narrow role and report on on-chain activity related to a particular lightning channel. The challenge is to design a system that users can trust that watchtowers respond correctly to fraud without trusting or releasing sensitive information in the general sense.

Without an effective watch tower infrastructure, users are subject to potentially irreversible losses during offline periods, particularly in low-liquid or hostile environments. As Lightning Network aims for wider adoption, especially among mobile users and merchants that are not constantly present online, watchers become an essential layer for ease of use and trust. Their role is to be defensive as well as abstract complex vigilance requirements and allow lightning bolts to be accessible to less technicians. Building a watch tower system that awards decentralized, incentive-compatible privacy is a key goal for Lightning’s long-term scalability and resilience, and its success could determine whether the network can mature into a truly global and always available layer for Bitcoin payments.

What does BitVMX bring to the table from an observer’s perspective?

BITVMX is an advanced framework built on the rootstock (RSK) Sidechain for Bitcoin, focusing on enabling generic off-chain calculations on Bitcoin that can be performed on-chain using interactive fraud proofs. Based on the principles of the original BITVM concept, BITVMX allows participants to run complex programs off-chain off-chain and commit to the results in a way that can be verified and contested on the Bitcoin blockchain if necessary. This is achieved through a challenge response protocol that can prove and penalize malfunctions using standard Bitcoin scripts without requiring any changes to Bitcoin consensus rules. Combining expressive programmerism with Bitcoin’s robust security model, BitVMX opens the door to reliable minimization applications such as scalable rollups, verifiable dispers and advanced smart contracts. For more information about BITVMX, see our previous post.

BITVMX introduces a new paradigm by enabling the execution of off-chain programs that can be implemented in a chain through fraud proofs. In the lightning context, this not only makes the eye-opener more flexible, but also provides a way to validate and correct the behavior. Instead of relying on a single trusted party to detect and respond to fraud, participants can encode the conditions that the watcher must follow and challenge them if they deviate. This innovation could translate watchtowers into programmable agents that can be audited and carried out without compromising user privacy or decentralization, potentially solving long-standing Lightning Security problems.

From a broader perspective, the watchman acts as a narrow type of blockchain oracle. They observe transactions, especially at the Bitcoin base layer, and especially external events, and respond when conditions are met. This is similar to the “Oracle problem,” which focuses on providing reliable, verifiable information to the blockchain environment from outside the chain. BITVMX mitigates this by turning watchers into verifiable computing agents that are subject to dispute resolution via fraud proofs. This significantly reduces the trust required of a single watchtower operator while maintaining the privacy and efficiency benefits required for actual use.

Lightning Network users remain exposed to potential fund losses, especially when offline, as there is nothing to enhance through enforcement mechanisms like BitVMX. This makes Lightning’s appeal to casual or mobile-first users exactly the demographics needed for mass adoption. By enabling programmatic, distributed and challenging watchtower logic, BitVMX represents a critical step into a safer and user-friendly Lightning network, if adopted. It provides a path to scale Bitcoin payments without compromising trust assumptions or decentralization, reinforces Lightning’s goal of becoming a truly global and authorized payment system.

How does BitVMX’s approach to Watchtowers differ from past attempts?

The concept of a watchman has been around for a long time, but its practical implementation faces problems with trust, centralization and limited incentives. The need for distributed and verifiable alternatives remains one of the key open challenges of the Lightning network.

BITVMX offers a new approach to solving this problem by enabling expressive off-chain calculations that can be performed on-chain through fraud proofs. When applied to an observer, this means that logics such as detecting cancelled transactions and acting on them can be written as verifiable programs. Unlike traditional observers, where users must trust in order to behave correctly, BitVMX-based observers are bound by predefined logic that participants can audit and challenge on-chain if fraud is suspected. This is not just a reputation, but creates a trusted modern architecture where the watcher operates under encryption scrutiny. As a result, a security model compatible with distributed deployments and unauthorized participation is much stronger.

When comparing BITVMX with traditional tower models, the key differences lie in verifiability and enforcement. Legacy Watchers typically run as a standalone service that monitors members and blockchains and acts as needed, but users must trust them to do so honestly and promptly. We also disclose privacy risks as we require detailed knowledge of specific channels to perform our duties. Some suggestions aim to introduce encrypted data blobs or monetary incentives, but these remain incomplete and often require trade-offs between reliability, cost, and decentralization. BITVMX avoids these issues by embedding operational rules into a coercive framework that challenges misbehaviors and can be punished, and by eliminating the need for trust while maintaining user privacy.

As Lightning’s adoption grows, robust offline security becomes essential for mainstream users who run full nodes or do not maintain a certain level of connectivity. Guardians, especially those empowered by BitVMX’s programmable fraud prevention model, can play this role because there are far fewer compromises. They not only passively protect users, but do so in a way that is consistent with Bitcoin’s commitment to resistance to censorship and minimal trust. In this light, BitVMX-powered watchdogs represent key enablers for scaling lightning into a wider audience, transforming experimental features into the fundamental pillars of Bitcoin’s fast, secure, decentralized payment infrastructure.

]]> https://earlybirdsinvest.com/how-can-bitvmx-observers-help-you-improve-your-lightning-network/feed/ 0 49748 How Push Notifications Can Improve Crypto Wallet Engagement https://earlybirdsinvest.com/how-push-notifications-can-improve-crypto-wallet-engagement/ https://earlybirdsinvest.com/how-push-notifications-can-improve-crypto-wallet-engagement/#respond Tue, 03 Jun 2025 17:39:48 +0000 https://earlybirdsinvest.com/how-push-notifications-can-improve-crypto-wallet-engagement/

Codezeros

For businesses operating in the cryptocurrency sector, user engagement is a critical driver of success. With the rapid growth of digital assets, crypto wallets have become essential tools for millions of users worldwide. However, simply providing a wallet is not enough — businesses must actively keep users engaged to foster loyalty, increase transaction volumes, and drive long-term value. One of the most effective methods for achieving this is through the intelligent use of push notifications.

Push notifications are short, targeted messages sent directly to users’ devices. In the context of crypto wallets, these alerts can inform users about transactions, market movements, security updates, and more. When implemented thoughtfully, push notifications can significantly boost user interaction, retention, and satisfaction.

Crypto Wallet Development Services play a crucial role in integrating these features into your digital asset management platform. By working with experienced developers, businesses can build wallets that not only store and transfer cryptocurrencies securely but also actively engage users through smart, behavior-driven notifications457. The right approach to push notifications can differentiate your wallet from competitors and help you build a loyal user base.

Push notifications are more than just reminders or alerts — they are a direct line of communication between your business and your users. In the fast-moving world of cryptocurrency, timely information is essential. Users want to know about completed transactions, price changes, security threats, and new features as soon as possible.

For crypto wallets, push notifications can serve several important functions:

  • Transaction Confirmations: Users receive immediate updates when a transaction is completed, building trust and reducing uncertainty.
  • Market Alerts: Real-time notifications about significant price movements or market news help users make informed decisions.
  • Security Updates: Alerts about login attempts, password changes, or suspicious activity keep users informed and protected.
  • Educational Content: Notifications can deliver tips, tutorials, and best practices for managing digital assets.
  • Promotional Offers: Special deals, referral programs, or new feature announcements can be targeted to specific user segments.

By integrating these features, Crypto Wallet Development Services enable businesses to create a more interactive and user-friendly experience. The result is higher engagement, improved retention, and increased trust in your platform.

Understanding why push notifications work is key to using them effectively. Research shows that well-timed, relevant notifications can dramatically increase user engagement. In the fintech sector, for example, push notifications have been shown to perform 2–3 times better than the industry average, with click-through rates (CTR) reaching as high as 17% for some campaigns1. This is because users perceive these alerts as mission-critical and personally relevant.

Several factors contribute to the success of push notifications:

  • Personalization: Notifications that address users by name or reference their specific activities are more likely to be opened and acted upon.
  • Segmentation: Sending alerts based on user behavior, preferences, or demographics ensures that messages are relevant and timely.
  • Timing: Notifications sent during periods of high user activity are more likely to be noticed and engaged with.
  • Actionability: Messages that prompt users to take a specific action — such as checking a transaction or reviewing a portfolio — are more effective than generic reminders.

For crypto wallets, these principles are especially important. Users are often managing significant assets and need to stay informed at all times. By applying these best practices, businesses can maximize the impact of their push notification strategy.

There are several types of push notifications that are particularly effective for crypto wallets:

Every time a user sends or receives cryptocurrency, a push notification confirms the action. This reassures users that their transaction has been processed and provides a record of the event. Transaction notifications are among the most valued by users, as they help build trust and reduce anxiety about the security of their funds.

Cryptocurrency markets are highly volatile. Real-time alerts about significant price changes, news events, or market trends help users stay informed and make timely decisions. For example, a user might want to be notified if the price of Bitcoin drops below a certain threshold or if a major regulatory announcement is made.

Security is a top priority for crypto wallet users. Push notifications can alert users to suspicious login attempts, password changes, or other security-related events. These alerts help users take immediate action to protect their assets and maintain confidence in the platform.

Push notifications can also be used to deliver educational content, such as tips for securing a wallet, managing digital assets, or understanding new features. Additionally, businesses can use notifications to promote special offers, referral programs, or new services.

Occasionally, businesses can use push notifications to solicit feedback from users. For example, after launching a new feature, a notification can invite users to try it out and share their thoughts. This not only increases engagement but also helps businesses improve their products based on user input.

To maximize the effectiveness of push notifications, businesses should follow several best practices:

  • Segment Your Audience: Use data about user behavior, preferences, and demographics to send targeted notifications. For example, send market alerts only to users who hold the relevant asset or are active traders.
  • Personalize Messages: Address users by name and reference their specific activities or preferences. Personalized messages are more likely to be opened and acted upon.
  • Optimize Timing: Send notifications during periods of high user activity. Avoid sending alerts late at night or during known low-engagement times.
  • Make Notifications Actionable: Clearly state what action the user should take, such as checking a transaction or reviewing a portfolio.
  • Test and Iterate: Use A/B testing to experiment with different message formats, timing, and content. Continuously refine your approach based on user feedback and engagement metrics.

Several leading crypto wallets have successfully used push notifications to boost user engagement:

  • imToken Wallet: This popular wallet uses smart push notifications to inform users about transactions, market changes, and security updates. By segmenting users and personalizing messages, imToken has achieved high engagement and retention rates.
  • Paysend: While not a crypto wallet, Paysend’s use of push notifications in the fintech space demonstrates the power of targeted alerts. Their campaigns achieve average click-through rates of 17%, far above the industry average.

These examples show that a well-executed push notification strategy can have a significant impact on user engagement and business success.

Building a crypto wallet with robust push notification capabilities requires expertise in both blockchain technology and user experience design. Crypto Wallet Development Services provide businesses with the tools and expertise needed to integrate advanced notification features into their wallets.

Key benefits of working with a professional development team include:

  • Custom Solutions: Development teams can create notifications tailored to your business needs and user base.
  • Security Integration: Notifications can be designed to work seamlessly with your wallet’s security features, ensuring that alerts are both timely and secure.
  • Analytics and Optimization: Development services often include analytics tools to track the effectiveness of your notifications and optimize your strategy over time.
  • Ongoing Support: Professional teams provide ongoing maintenance and updates, ensuring that your wallet remains secure and user-friendly.

As the cryptocurrency industry continues to evolve, push notifications will play an increasingly important role in user engagement. Advances in artificial intelligence, machine learning, and blockchain technology will enable even more personalized and timely alerts. For example, wallets may soon be able to predict user needs and send proactive notifications based on past behavior and market trends.

Businesses that invest in advanced push notification features today will be well-positioned to lead the market in the future. By partnering with experienced Crypto Wallet Development Services, companies can stay ahead of the curve and deliver a superior user experience.

Despite their many benefits, push notifications can also present challenges for crypto wallet providers. Some users may find frequent alerts annoying or intrusive, leading to opt-outs or negative feedback. Others may be concerned about privacy or security risks.

To address these challenges, businesses should:

  • Respect User Preferences: Allow users to customize which notifications they receive and how often.
  • Prioritize Security: Ensure that notifications do not expose sensitive information and are delivered securely.
  • Monitor Engagement Metrics: Track how users respond to notifications and adjust your strategy accordingly.
  • Solicit Feedback: Regularly ask users for feedback on your notification strategy and make improvements based on their input.

By taking these steps, businesses can maximize the benefits of push notifications while minimizing potential downsides.

Push notifications are most effective when used as part of a broader user engagement strategy. For example, businesses can combine notifications with in-app messaging, email marketing, and social media outreach to create a multi-channel approach. This ensures that users receive timely, relevant information through their preferred channels.

Crypto Wallet Development Services can help businesses integrate push notifications with other engagement tools, creating a cohesive and effective user experience.

Push notifications are a powerful tool for improving user engagement in crypto wallets. By delivering timely, relevant, and actionable alerts, businesses can keep users informed, build trust, and drive long-term loyalty. Implementing a robust push notification strategy requires careful planning, user segmentation, and ongoing optimization.

For businesses looking to build or upgrade their crypto wallet, partnering with experienced Crypto Wallet Development Services is essential. These teams provide the expertise, security, and support needed to create a wallet that stands out in a competitive market.

Ready to take your crypto wallet to the next level? Partner with Codezeros for expert Crypto Wallet Development Services. Our team will help you integrate advanced push notification features, optimize user engagement, and deliver a secure, user-friendly experience. Contact us today to get started!

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Bad tokenomics kill good projects (here’s how to improve them) https://earlybirdsinvest.com/bad-tokenomics-kill-good-projects-heres-how-to-improve-them/ https://earlybirdsinvest.com/bad-tokenomics-kill-good-projects-heres-how-to-improve-them/#respond Sat, 24 May 2025 17:04:03 +0000 https://earlybirdsinvest.com/bad-tokenomics-kill-good-projects-heres-how-to-improve-them/

The following is a guest post and opinion of Arthur Iinuma, Principal consultant and Founder of Iinuma.io.

While good tokenomics cannot save unsound projects, even the most promising network launches can fail from poor token design.

Spectacular flameouts like Terra LUNA and Celsius expose the dangers of financial sleight-of-hand—algorithmic stablecoins and yield schemes masquerading as innovation. But there are many more otherwise high-potential projects committing economic suicide through easily avoidable mistakes. 

Blue-chip projects with genuine technical merit and legitimate use cases, like Aptos, have watched billions in market cap evaporate overnight due to mismanaged token unlocks and poor communication. It’s critical for crypto founders to increase their emphasis on token design so great projects can build economic foundations as strong as their technical ones.

Fatal Flaws in Token Design

The biggest tokenomics mistakes I see in otherwise solid projects are:

Large Valuation Gaps

While it is customary for projects to offer early investors lower priced tokens compared to later rounds, founders should be careful in allowing wide pricing spreads between these early rounds and public buyers.  This may be easier said than done as shrewd investors demand lower prices against the threat of withholding investment.

However, an investor with a low entry price in comparison to a later round essentially guarantees their upside even at prices lower than the cost basis of a public buyer.  This means that a loss for buyers in later rounds may still result in gains for the earliest token holders – creating an unfair imbalance in the project’s token economy. 

Poor Vesting Schedule

Far too many projects turn their public buyers into exit liquidity for early investors and insiders. Nothing destroys community faster than watching early insiders dump tokens while public buyers hold withering bags.

The timing of unlocks are important.  While a long vesting and lockup schedule seems good for value appreciation, they almost always guarantee predictable sell pressure as investors who’ve been forced to hold for too long scramble to unload. Fast unlocks may provide rapid price discovery and expand the token holder base, but they also allow whales to dump, creating “red candles” and evaporating public confidence. 

Overselling by Founders

Sometimes the prospect of turning recently minted digital tokens into real value is too tempting for the founders that created them.  I’ve watched projects go from great ideas to publicly traded at over a billion USD in valuation, minting multi-millionaire founders in the process.  Even the most disciplined of them are tempted to sell their holdings and trade their project tokens for cash.

Take for instance Mantra, which suddenly lost 92% of its value in just 90 minutes.  Despite statements by the CEO to the contrary, blockchain analysts were quick to point out substantial insider movements of at least USD 227 million onto exchanges, suggesting an insider dump.

High Listing Valuation

Founders are often enticed to list at larger valuations as they make for bigger headlines, raised optics and build hype.  Founders are not entirely at fault, as even Binance has been known to push out unusually high listing valuations, with projects like Hamster Kombat (HMSTR) listing at over USD 700 million in market cap, and Notcoin listing at a staggering USD 1 billion at launch.

But overvalued project listings create a lot of “air” underneath them, and when everyone is in the money, it’s almost a guaranteed race to the bottom and token holders are quick to cash out to get more favorable pricing than the person next to them.  A high starting valuation also means the prospect of public buyers earning a multiple on their investment is slimmer, thinning out secondary market demand.  When you have a lot of holders selling and nobody to buy, the result is an eventual death spiral.  

While projects like Hamster Kombat set industry engagement records, and listed on the top exchanges in the world, its overvalue at listing resulted in a 87% price decline to its recorded all-time-low.

What Actually Works in Tokenomics

BTC and ETH hold the top market cap positions for good reason. Beyond being early, they’ve demonstrated several core principles that separate sustainable token models from hollow speculation vehicles.

Genuine Scarcity

Bitcoin’s 21 million fixed supply cap isn’t powerful just because it’s scarce—it’s powerful because the market believes with absolute certainty that this limit won’t change.

Deep Product Integration

The fundamental question every project should answer honestly: Could your product function without a token? If yes, you’re likely forcing tokenization where it doesn’t belong.

Projects like Filecoin embody this principle well—their token is essential to the network’s storage marketplace function, making it nearly impossible to separate the product from its token. By contrast, projects that bolt on tokens as afterthoughts typically see their tokens wither in value over time.

Selling Restrictions

Projects should structure valuations across each sale round with reduced spread and design a lockup schedule that prevents lower-priced buyers from “dumping” their tokens on participants in later rounds.  Creating a layered vesting schedule that restricts early sales for buyers with a low entry point while allowing for later-round participants to de-risk first offers a reasonable balance of upside for early buyers and price protection for later buyers.

Use of Audited Claim Contracts

Well-structured token economics goes beyond what is written in a document.  Projects should take a step further and ensure their tokens are custodied by a third-party audited, irrevocable smart contract guaranteeing transparency and compliance by all parties.

Realistic Valuation & Supply Management

Lower initial valuations might feel like leaving money on the table, but they create room for meaningful appreciation. Projects launching at already-inflated valuations leave little upside for new participants, killing momentum and community growth.

A low total supply allows for better price control and market responsiveness. It imbues tokens with more significance, making manipulation more difficult and price movements more meaningful.

Active Token Management

Good tokenomics isn’t set-and-forget—it requires ongoing stewardship. Here are some best practices:

  1. Strategic supply management: Increase circulating supply only during rising markets. This prevents dumping additional tokens into already weak markets.
  2. Buyback programs: Implement token repurchases when sell pressure is high to stabilize the price and signal project commitment to a high token valuation. 
  3. Controlled liquidation: Require large investors to use market makers when selling significant positions to prevent large price impacts from sudden dumps.

Building To Last

The most successful projects approach tokenomics as an extension of product design rather than exclusively an exercise of financial engineering.

Thoughtful tokenomics are a signal to the market of a thoughtful product and team. Your token is ultimately your best marketing tool—it rewards loyalty and financially aligns users. 

Mentioned in this article
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Why can’t Lightning Network Nodes reveal channel balance to improve routing efficiency? https://earlybirdsinvest.com/why-cant-lightning-network-nodes-reveal-channel-balance-to-improve-routing-efficiency/ https://earlybirdsinvest.com/why-cant-lightning-network-nodes-reveal-channel-balance-to-improve-routing-efficiency/#respond Sat, 29 Mar 2025 13:00:13 +0000 https://earlybirdsinvest.com/why-cant-lightning-network-nodes-reveal-channel-balance-to-improve-routing-efficiency/

I know that I can announce a channel between the two peers or do it without notice. However, even if the channel is public, the channel balance has not been revealed. As far as I know, this is a concern about the efficiency of routing in Lightning networks.

Why can’t peers opt out of this privacy constraint (along with other peers’ agreements) and reveal the balance between improving routing and network efficiency? Clearing channel balance reduces privacy, but connected peers can benefit financially from doing so.

For example, large LN nodes belonging to the exchange are very likely to agree to this. They are already well known, so they earn more economic benefits and have little privacy concerns. If they don’t care about privacy, this is a win-win situation.

Basically, we sell your information to make more money.

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WAX Removes Wallet Creation Fee to Improve Accessibility https://earlybirdsinvest.com/wax-removes-wallet-creation-fee-to-improve-accessibility/ https://earlybirdsinvest.com/wax-removes-wallet-creation-fee-to-improve-accessibility/#respond Mon, 17 Mar 2025 15:01:37 +0000 https://earlybirdsinvest.com/wax-removes-wallet-creation-fee-to-improve-accessibility/

The Worldwide Asset eXchange (WAX) has removed the fee required to create a blockchain account through its Cloud Wallet.

Previously, new users had to pay 5 $WAXP to set up an account, a measure originally introduced to prevent automated bot activity. The removal of this fee is intended to make it easier for new users to join the WAX blockchain and encourage broader adoption by reducing the financial barrier to entry.

WAX stated that its blockchain “is stronger than ever” and is therefore making account creation easy and free.

WAX Removes Wallet Creation Fee to Improve Accessibility
Source: WAX

What is WAX?

WAX is a blockchain network designed for high-volume transactions, with a particular focus on gaming, digital assets, and NFTs.

Unlike some other blockchains, WAX does not charge transaction fees, allowing users to interact with dApps and trade assets without incurring costs for each transaction.

The blockchain is built to support large-scale activity, processing up to 10,000 transactions per second. It has been adopted by various NFT projects, game developers, and digital marketplaces due to its efficiency and ease of use. WAX also offers a Cloud Wallet, which allows users to manage their assets without needing extensive technical knowledge of blockchain technology.

WAX Removes Wallet Creation Fee to Improve Accessibility
Source: WAX

What’s next for WAX?

The removal of the wallet creation fee is one of several changes WAX has planned for 2025. Initially, the fee was introduced to prevent excessive bot activity and automated account creation, but WAX has stated that its security measures have since evolved, allowing the paywall to be lifted.

In addition to this change, WAX has is rolling out several upgrades this year to enhance its blockchain infrastructure, developer tools, and marketplace. The Cloud Wallet will receive mobile apps for iOS and Android, expanded support for side chains, Testnet environments, and EVM compatibility.

On the blockchain level, WAX is improving security and decentralisation, including quantum-proofing, decentralising its Random Number Generator (RNG) system, and making its Multichain Bridge open-source. Performance optimizations, such as RAM efficiency improvements, will help scale the network whilst maintaining smooth operations.

For developers, WAX is simplifying node deployment and expanding documentation to support dApp integration. Meanwhile, the vIRL Marketplace will undergo improvements to enhance the trading experience.

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