01
zSide
PrivacyA privacy sidechain derived from Zcash. Brings shielded, zero-knowledge transactions to Bitcoin, so BTC can move confidentially — no separate coin and no trusted mixer.
// the sidechains
Sidechains
Seven drivechains in active development at Layer Two Labs — each a purpose-built chain secured by Bitcoin's proof-of-work through blind merge mining, with no new token.
02
Thunder
PaymentsA high-throughput payments sidechain. Optimized for fast, low-fee transactions at large scale, keeping everyday spending off scarce mainchain block space.
03
Truthcoin
Prediction marketsA decentralized oracle and prediction-market sidechain — Paul Sztorc's Hivemind design. Settles real-world outcomes and runs peer-to-peer betting markets without a trusted third party.
04
Photon
Quantum resistanceA sidechain focused on quantum resistance — hardening Bitcoin-secured value against future quantum attacks on today’s signature schemes.
05
CoinShift
Trustless swapsA sidechain node with a trustless L2 ↔ L1 swap system, moving value between the sidechain and Bitcoin mainchain without a custodian.
06
BitNames
Naming & identityA decentralized naming and identity sidechain. Register human-readable names, domains, and identities on Bitcoin — a Namecoin-style system with no separate token.
07
BitAssets
Assets & tokensAn asset-issuance sidechain. Create and trade user-defined assets — tokens, stablecoins, and synthetic instruments — collateralized and settled on Bitcoin.
// proposing a sidechain
How a new sidechain gets adopted
BIP 300 makes sidechains permissionless to build and miner-approved to activate. Anyone can create one; Bitcoin's miners decide whether it earns a slot. Here's the path from idea to live chain.
- 01
Build the sidechain node
Fork a template — such as Layer Two Labs'
plainsidechain — or use the drivechain library to implement your chain's rules, its deposit and withdrawal logic, and BIP 301 blind merge mining so Bitcoin miners can commit to your blocks. No permission is needed to write it; the software itself is the proposal. - 02
Define its on-chain identity
Assemble the metadata that uniquely names the chain: a slot number (BIP 300 provides 256 sidechain slots), a version, a human-readable title and description, and hashes committing to the exact software release — so every node and miner can verify they're running identical rules.
- 03
Broadcast the proposal (M1)
Publish an M1 "Propose Sidechain" message in the coinbase of a Bitcoin block, claiming an empty slot. This registers the candidate directly on the mainchain and opens its activation vote — no altcoin, no separate token sale.
- 04
Win the miner vote (M2)
Over a fixed activation window, miners signal approval by including M2 "ACK Sidechain" messages in their coinbase outputs, block after block. The proposal must clear a high approval threshold within the window: enough hashrate agreement and the slot activates; too little and it expires, freeing the slot for someone else.
- 05
Go live — deposits, BMM, withdrawals
Once a slot is active, users peg BTC in by depositing to the sidechain's escrow output, transact on the chain, and peg out through the slow, publicly-audited withdrawal-bundle process (M3 / M4). Miners keep securing it with blind merge mining — one proof-of-work, your chain included — and it stays denominated in BTC with no new token.
Note: BIP 300/301 is a proposed Bitcoin soft fork and is not yet activated on mainnet, so today these steps run on a drivechain signet. Activating BIP 300 itself is a one-time soft fork; after that, every new sidechain is adopted through the miner-vote process above — no further protocol change required.