RSK, the second layer solution that brings smart contract functionality to bitcoin, has been making great strides towards global adoption with a slew of partnerships and announcements. As part of these efforts, IOV Labs, the company which powers RSK, recently unveiled its partnership with Tribe, a government-backed blockchain accelerator based in Singapore. The deal will see RSK’s second-layer solution made available to all government agencies, corporations and late-stage startups that are looking to develop products and services on the blockchain. RSK’s RIF, a third layer P2P services marketplace, is also incorporated in the deal.
Promoting Bitcoin With RSK
To support its ongoing efforts in Singapore, IOV Labs has also created an RSK Adoption Hub that will further help to develop open, secure blockchain technology services and work to foster partnerships in the region. The company has already announced a number of key investment projects supported through its Ecosystem Fund including Vega, a decentralized protocol for creating and trading derivatives; and Multis, a crypto lender designed as an online banking service for companies.
In September, IOV Labs spearheaded its adoption efforts in Latin America with the acquisition of Taringa, a social network with over 30 million users. The company plans to integrate the RSK wallet into the social network, making it possible to tokenize certain types of interactions, for instance by allowing users to tip or sponsor their favorite content creators on the platform. IOV Labs also intends to switch Taringa’s infrastructure to its proprietary RIF protocols, further demonstrating the efficacy of decentralization.
This strategy overlaps with its partnership with NXTP, a blockchain accelerator operating in the Latin-American region. Latin America has not been the only focus for the company, with IOV Labs revealing a partnership with Japan's largest blockchain accelerator BINARYSTAR in October, having already created a North American office in the city of San Francisco earlier in the year.
Why It Matters
While the value proposition of bitcoin is focused on its use as a digital currency or even a store of value – depending on who you ask – most major altcoins, including ethereum, have pushed interest and adoption through smart contract functionality. That model, which has been adopted to some degree by almost every blockchain since, is what has allowed ethereum, EOS, TRON and others to leverage their technology towards greater adoption, as developers have partnered with these projects and developed their own apps upon them.
Initially, Vitalik Buterin’s concept for smart contract functionality was to introduce scripting on bitcoin’s blockchain. However, where Buterin failed to win support for smart contracts on bitcoin, RSK has succeeded via a second-layer solution that utilizes merge-mining, allowing bitcoin miners to gain rewards in RSK without the need for extra computational power. This preserves the integrity of bitcoin while also providing censorship resistant smart contract functionality, opening up the bitcoin network to developers, applications, and the many partnerships and deals forged by IOV Labs.
Good for Bitcoin
Speaking with iHodl about the company’s recent expansion efforts, IOV Labs CEO Diego Gutiérrez Zaldívar is optimistic not only for the future of the company, but for the effect it will have on bitcoin over time. He said: “We believe the rapid expansion and adoption of RSK technologies, aided by IOV Labs’ strategic partnerships and acquisitions, will boost bitcoin and blockchain adoption globally. In 2020 we will redouble our efforts to demonstrate the advantages of decentralization and get the tech into the hands of users. Greater numbers of individuals and enterprises than ever before are catching on to bitcoin and the benefits it offers in terms of censorship-resistance and security. RSK technologies will continue leveraging the power of Bitcoin to enable a global, fully inclusive financial ecosystem.”