Crypto Society Ama Recap with Portal — 14th January 2025
Portal is the safest and easiest path to Bitcoin from other chains and L2s. Portal’s Bitscaler-based infrastructure is ushering in the era of custody-less cross-chain transactions that are fast, seamless, and secure.
₿ilo | Crypto Society
Welcome, Team Portal. It’s our pleasure to have you with us today. I want to welcome you here on behalf of our entire community.
Could we begin with a brief history of yourself and your team, your role at Portal, what you were doing before, how Portal started, and what primary problems it aims to solve in the crypto space?
Terry Way | Portal
I’m Terry, a director of marketing at PortaltoBitcoin.com
Before Portal, I worked at a centralized exchange and I can tell you firsthand that working in DeFi is so much better than CeFi!
Deedle | Portal
Hey guys I’m Deedle leading marketing and community at Portal
₿ilo | Crypto Society
Please explain what Portal is as simply as possible. We will dive deeper as we progress in this AMA.
Terry Way | Portal
Most succinctly, Portal is a Bitcoin-based Cross-Chain Atomic Swaps AMM-based DEX.
This means users maintain full self-custody at all times, without the need for bridges or wrapped coins.
₿ilo | Crypto Society
Awesome — Please tell us about Portal OS.
Terry Way | Portal
Portal OS is the operating system at the core of the Portal Network.
It facilitates decentralized communication and operations across blockchains.
Portal OS handles:
1. Cross-chain coordination: Enabling seamless atomic swaps and liquidity routing.
2. Network security: Ensuring decentralized verification and validation.
3. Modules for efficiency: Components like pathfinding, price oracles, and validators optimize the network for speed and reliability.
It’s the backbone that powers Portal’s scalability, trustlessness, and interoperability.
As the end user, you don’t need to worry about Portal OS
This is more for the development side & Node Runners.
But it is still good to know if you’ve got the time and the nerdy inclination.🧐
₿ilo | Crypto Society
Thanks for that — what are atomic swaps? Sounds dangerous 😮I mean I know what they are but more for the benefit of our audience 😙
Terry Way | Portal
Atomic Swaps aren’t a new technology so no need to fear!
They’ve been around since around 2014, but have been impractical for use so the technology languished in obscurity.
They’re a way for two more blockchains to transact without the risk of theft.
To make this technology practical we’ve utilized L2 & and an AMM… otherwise to actuate you practically need two devices to even trade with yourself!
Deedle | Portal
Less than a nanometer
₿ilo | Crypto Society
Thanks for indulging 🙂
₿ilo | Crypto Society
Now for the big one: Please tell us about Bitscaler and how BitScaler enhances Bitcoin’s scalability for DeFi applications
Deedle | Portal
BitScaler is a multi-party channel architecture built at Layer 3 that prepares Bitcoin for custody-less cross-chain interactivity and is fully Lightning compatible. This is done by introducing a few very important innovations: custom channel factories, noncustodial signing delegation, and permissionless cross-chain pooling
Terry Way | Portal
Now BitScaler is new, and it was developed by us!
₿ilo | Crypto Society
Ok so BitScaler enables permissionless cross-chain contracts on Bitcoin for DeFi and other Web3 applications. Does this mean I can bridge BTC to another chain for use on defi protocols?
Terry Way | Portal
You’ll be able to swap across chains with it yes… but please do avoid bridging.
Bridges are dangerous and known to collapse or even just de-peg!
₿ilo | Crypto Society
Ok, so it’s not a bridge.
So with wrapped BTC I send BTC across to another chain which then can be redeemed when I bridge back. What’s the process here?
Terry Way | Portal
You’ll hopefully redeem it when you bridge back. That’s the risk with bridging. You’re putting your hopes and the safety of your coins in the hands of someone else.
We don’t do that here at Portal to Bitcoin. We use Native Bitcoin
₿ilo | Crypto Society
Nice and this is all permissionless & non-custodial correct? So how is it done?
Terry Way | Portal
You can think of swaps as essentially a teleport as opposed to walking across an unsafe bridge
₿ilo | Crypto Society
Ok, thanks. So I’m just trying to understand how this all works. If I want one BTC on Solana, I swap on your platform and I have a SOL native BTC that I can defi with ?
Deedle | Portal
If you have SOL and you want to get into BTC, you can use the Portal DEX wallet and swap that SOL into native BTC seamlessly via an atomic swap.
₿ilo | Crypto Society
Ok, I see but not vice versa?
As in can I port BTC onto Solana or another chain?
Terry Way | Portal
Yes, vice versa! Both avenues
We like to think that all chains and assets will enjoy having access to Bitcoin liquidity, and we also think that this is their undoing as they trade their value back into Bitcoin.
₿ilo | Crypto Society
What are the potential applications of BitScaler beyond DeFi?
Terry Way | Portal
Basically, all supported chains & tokens will gain access to Bitcoin liquidity, and as well once you’re ready you can swap your ETH/SOL/etc back into Bitcoin.
₿ilo | Crypto Society
How does BitScaler compare to other Bitcoin scaling solutions? What projects are currently, if any, doing or looking to do something similar to Portal and what differentiates you from them?
Terry Way | Portal
While mostly aiming to advance Bitcoin & Bitcoin-based DeFi….
BitScaler can support cross-chain gaming, NFT / Ordinal interoperability, decentralized identity solutions, and data sharing across blockchains.
Essentially, any use case requiring secure and decentralized cross-chain interactions can leverage BitScaler’s infrastructure.
₿ilo | Crypto Society
Love it
What are the main challenges faced and how are they being addressed?
Terry Way | Portal
BitScaler is unique in its own right. We sawone group try to copy it but they didn’t get very far.
@deedle want to talk about some of the Sepolia Testnet issues we’ve caused?
We’ve been spiking gas fees and breaking a lot of public Testnet infrastructure around our supported chains.
₿ilo | Crypto Society
If there’s nothing more to add, tell us a little about Liquidity router, swap SDK, portal wallet & RAFA
Terry Way | Portal
On the Bitcoin side, we had so much overwhelming use that our partner faucet thought we were hitting them with DDoS attack!
₿ilo | Crypto Society
Brilliant
Terry Way | Portal
We ended up forking that Bitcoin Signet ourselves and now maintain it personally. This has relieved some of the issues around the Bitcoin testnet side.
As our CTO Manoj likes to say, everything would be easier to test on Mainnet.
Many limitations on testnet just don’t exist on Mainnet
₿ilo | Crypto Society
Wow. You have your own fork. Awesome
Sers, this part of the AMA is make or break for my career as an intern here at Crypto society.
I've been interning here for 5 years and if I do a good job, I will become part of the CS team in 12 years.🤞
Terry Way | Portal
So this is a bunch, let me get into it!
The liquidity router uses BitScaler to facilitate our fast & cheap cross-chain swaps
We have more documentation on docs.portaldefi.com for those interested
₿ilo | Crypto Society
Please let me know if you have anything to add
Terry Way | Portal
The swap SDK will be openly provided for others to use such as other wallets (many of whom we are in talks with right now, including names you know already!) that are looking to enable cross-chain swaps within their own wallet & ecosystem.
You can download our portal DEX Wallet & get started on your journey over at nodes.portaltobitcoin.com
We’re currently in testnet and mainnet is not far off!
Deedle | Portal
We’re 5 weeks into testnet
And numbers are loco!
10m tx
10,000,000 transactions (swaps)
650,000 users
Coming up on 700,000
Terry Way | Portal
And you, our dear listeners, can join too!
Deedle | Portal
https://nodes.portaltobitcoin.com
₿ilo | Crypto Society
Congrats guys. That’s something. What an achievement
Terry Way | Portal
I’ll drop this here for those interested in our ai co-pilot.
Rafa.ai
₿ilo | Crypto Society
Thank you for all this great info
I need some breaking news. Like seriously BREAKING. As in never publicly shared before.
Terry Way | Portal
So we are only very, very recently able to make public that we are adding Solana (and Solana assets!) to our supported chains.
And, you’d be able to “cash out” your supported Solana assets for cold, hard BITCOIN!
Let’s be honest, if Solana has issues there is a good chance that the assets on Solana are going to have issues too
and you may not want to simply trade in your Solana assets for Solana when you could have BITCOIN!
₿ilo | Crypto Society
Ok wait
Is this the first time this news is shared?
Terry Way | Portal
We haven’t shared this anywhere yet
That means that if you’ve got a favorite meme on Solana, it could get access to Bitcoin liquidity!
₿ilo | Crypto Society
Do you wish to let us know anything else that was not covered in the questions above?
Terry Way | Portal
We’re fast too! Comparable projects doing this can take over an hour to swap into Bitcoin, whereas it’s more like 60 seconds for us through the POWER of L2
Do you know how much can change in this industry in an HOUR?!?!
Deedle | Portal
Thorchain can take 90+ mins
Terry Way | Portal
That’s even longer than an hour! I was being generous to them :P
Deedle | Portal
Mainly go try it yourself!
₿ilo | Crypto Society
I Will do that for sure!!!
Deedle | Portal
Terry Way | Portal
And join our discord:
Discord.gg/portaltobitcoin
This is the best avenue in case you need any tech support or just wanna swap with Frens.
Deedle | Portal
Also, check out this tweet!
And follow on Twitter!
₿ilo | Crypto Society
Thank you for your time in answering our questions here today. We are all very appreciative of your time and of the answers you have provided
With this, we will open up the chat for those who wish to personally thank you for your time with us here today.
For the Q/A, at the end of our AMA, I will ask the audience to type in their questions into the chat so you can select the ones to answer & select the winners.
Gracy Chen
Cross-chain interoperability is a crucial aspect of DeFi. How does Portal plan to expand its cross-chain capabilities in the future, especially with emerging blockchain protocols and Layer 2 solutions? What steps are being taken to ensure Portal’s mainnet avoids similar disruptions while maintaining high performance?
Portal
Fortunately, these issues are largely restricted to Testnet.
We save a lot on fees & gain a LOT of speed through L2 and so we don’t expect to face similar issues on mainnet.
Rock / TalkzLabs [ Marketing Expert]
Do You allow suggestions and feedback from the community are we allowed in decision-making, do you put the community into consideration?
Portal
Yes definitely and there will be on-chain governance.
Clarasaktii🐾 | Drops💧
Why in your opinion would someone choose portal to Bitcoin over an exchange to get himself some Bitcoin? Do you think there are no competitors doing something similar in the market?
Portal
If they don’t want to be hacked and get their funds stolen.
For those who prefer the FTX experience over security self-sovereignty and self-custody, this product is not for them.
KHORANU SEKH
What steps are being taken to ensure the Portal network remains decentralized, and how is node distribution managed to prevent centralization?
Portal
So part of this is our actual incentivization campaign ( available at nodes.portaltobitcoin.com )
This will distribute around 21000 LiteNodes, earning a generous 5% slice of TOTAL network emission with anticipated monthly epochs (i.e you get your earnings each month).
This helps keep our network decentralized as LiteNodes effectively monitor the Validator nodes to ensure no funny business.
Shatoshi Money🚀🔥
With Portal achieving impressive adoption during its testnet phase, what metrics will the team use to measure success post-mainnet launch? How do you plan to convert testnet users into long-term participants within the Portal ecosystem?
Portal
This is a good question. I'm not going to lie, stats on testnet are great but don’t guarantee success on mainnet. We must ensure that we have product-market fit, take feedback from users, and consistently iterate and adapt the product based on the biggest positive impact. Success will be measured by the amount of daily volume transferring through the Portal liquidity pools and the adoption of the front-end product. But I would like to see is greater adoption of CEX products over DEX products.
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