Bitlayer Partners with Top Bitcoin Miners to Boost DeFi Adoption

Coin WorldMonday, May 26, 2025 9:07 pm ET
2min read

Bitlayer, a Bitcoin Layer 2 solution built on the BitVM paradigm, has formed a strategic partnership with three of the world’s largest bitcoin mining pools: Antpool, F2Pool, and SpiderPool. This collaboration aims to accelerate the real-world adoption of BitVM, a technology designed to enable Bitcoin-native DeFi (Decentralized Finance).

Bitcoin’s ecosystem has historically lagged behind other Layer 1 blockchains like Ethereum due to its technical limitations, particularly the lack of support for Turing-complete smart contracts. Bitlayer’s BitVM paradigm addresses this issue by providing Bitcoin-equivalent security and Turing completeness without altering Bitcoin’s core protocol or compromising its foundational design.

To turn this vision into reality, the cooperation of miners is essential. Miners are the entities that create new blocks and validate transactions in exchange for BTC. This new partnership secures that cooperation. The three mining pools, representing over 36% of Bitcoin’s total computing power (hashrate), have agreed to support non-standard transactions (NSTs). NSTs are a critical component of BitVM’s challenge-response mechanism and are transactions that are valid under Bitcoin’s consensus rules but are not relayed by the default Bitcoin Core software, making them hard to get confirmed on-chain without miner cooperation.

Under this partnership, Antpool, F2Pool, and SpiderPool will serve as guardians of the BitVM Bridge. This bridge ensures that NSTs are reliably included in blocks and become part of Bitcoin’s immutable ledger. The BitVM bridge is a special tool that facilitates the secure and reliable movement of BTC into other blockchain ecosystems, such as rollups, cross-chain protocols, and smart contracts, without relying on centralized intermediaries. This opens the door for broader Bitcoin DeFi applications while preserving the network’s robust security guarantees.

Kevin He, co-founder of Bitlayer, highlighted the significance of this partnership, stating, “BitVM represents the most credible path to bring on-chain validation to Bitcoin while maintaining its core security. This partnership solves the critical last-mile challenge of getting Non-Standard Transactions included on-chain.”

This collaboration is not only a milestone for Bitlayer but also a strategic win for miners. As miners face dwindling income due to per-block BTC rewards being cut in half every four years, Bitlayer’s BitVM can help drive new economic activity and fee-based income for miners. Andy, CEO of Antpool, noted that Bitlayer’s BitVM can enable BTC to flow into DeFi and Layer 2 ecosystems, leading to more use, more fees, and long-term sustainability for miners.

Leon Liang, chief strategy officer at F2Pool, emphasized the importance of innovation, saying, “we want to support high-quality projects like Bitlayer that expand what Bitcoin can do.” SpiderPool CTO Kenway spoke to the broader potential of Bitcoin as a financial services platform, stating, “This partnership lets us unlock new possibilities for Bitcoin DeFi. It enhances Bitcoin’s utility while reinforcing miners’ central role in the ecosystem.”

Bitlayer’s collaboration with these mining giants follows recent integrations with major Layer 1 ecosystems like Sui, Base, Arbitrum, and Starknet. These partnerships reflect a growing demand for secure, Bitcoin-native DeFi infrastructure that scales. Bitlayer is actively onboarding more validators and early adopters to help secure and expand the BitVM Bridge, which could become the cornerstone of Bitcoin’s next evolution.