Marathon Digital, a prominent player in the cryptocurrency mining industry, has announced its foray into Bitcoin scaling with the introduction of a cutting-edge multichain layer-2 network called Anduro. In a blog post published on February 28, the company revealed that it has been working on developing this scaling platform to expedite the growth and adoption of Bitcoin.
Anduro has been designed to function as an application layer and foster innovation within the Bitcoin ecosystem by enabling the creation of multiple sidechains. The programmable layer-2 network aims to integrate decentralized governance in a systematic manner, with a strong emphasis on becoming the most reliable and developer-centric Bitcoin layer-two, according to the firm.
While Marathon has played a key role in incubating Anduro, the company has emphasized that it is intended to be community-led and driven. Additionally, Marathon has also disclosed that it is currently working on the development of the first two sidechains on Anduro, named Coordinate and Alys. Coordinate offers a cost-effective UTXO stack for the Ordinals community, while Alys is an Ethereum-compatible sidechain specifically designed for institutional asset tokenization.
One notable feature of Anduro is its utilization of a novel system called merge-mining. This system allows miners like Marathon to earn revenue from Anduro sidechain transactions while simultaneously continuing to mine Bitcoin.
According to the Litepaper, governance on the Anduro network will be managed by a diverse consortium of Bitcoin-forward entities known as the Collective. However, this governance structure will be phased out once trustless alternatives are deemed ready for production.
Marathon’s Chairman and CEO, Fred Thiel, has expressed the company’s commitment to supporting innovation within the Bitcoin ecosystem, citing projects like Anduro as examples. He stated, “We believe in testing, iterating, and letting the market decide what ideas succeed. Anduro is one of those ideas that provides value to Bitcoin holders and application developers, all while reinforcing the long-run sustainability of Bitcoin’s Proof-of-Work.”
Moving forward, Marathon’s next objective is to secure influential and aligned partners who are willing to invest in driving Bitcoin adoption.
In recent weeks, there has been a surge in interest surrounding Bitcoin layer-2 narratives, particularly following the hype surrounding the Ordinals and BRC-20 projects in 2023. Consequently, tokens associated with Bitcoin scaling projects or functionalities such as smart contracts have experienced significant growth, coinciding with Bitcoin’s recent surge to new multi-year highs.