What is Rootstock (RSK)?

Blockchain Experts
Sep 4, 2018 · 2 min read

Bitcoin is one of the widely used blockchain platforms today. Maybe, bitcoin network alone experiences a number of transactions than any other blockchain network. But bitcoin network is widely applied in monetary and financial transactions only, i.e. for transferring bitcoin. Another Blockchain network Ethereum, which can perform more functionalities like smart contract implementation and digital asset management is not well utilized at the same time. RSK is an attempt to bring the capabilities of Ethereum to bitcoin blockchain. Thus enhance the capabilities of the mostly used blockchain network.

RSK is an open source smart contract platform which allows development and implementation of smart contracts over bitcoin blockchain. It exists as a sidechain of the blockchain. A sidechain is a separate blockchain exist along with the main blockchain with a back and forth transaction compatibility. There are miners to validate the transactions in RSK but the network doesn’t have its own currency. The miners are rewarded with bitcoin via merge-mining. The 2-way peg between RSK and Bitcoin ensures a constant connection between RSK and Blockchain.

EVM and RSK

RSK provides a Turing complete virtual machine which is backward compatible with EVM. This virtual machine imparts the features like smart contract development and digital asset management to Bitcoin blockchain. In fact, with EVM (Ethereum Virtual Machine) based RSK side chain, the bitcoin blockchain will get the advantages of an Ethereum network.

Currency Transfer.

As mentioned earlier, the 2-way peg between RSK and Bitcoin facilitate the currency transaction between RSK and Bitcoin network. When a user tries to convert Bitcoin to Side chain bitcoin, the amount will be blocked in bitcoin blockchain and the same amount is released in sidechain. The reverse process is carried out when a user tries to transact Side chain BTC to main BTC.

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