Marathon Digital Introduces Bitcoin Layer 2 Network Anduro

Janet F. Sanchez -

Overview

Crypto mining giant Marathon Digital has announced its entry into Bitcoin scaling with Anduro, a multichain layer-2 network. Anduro, utilizing merge-mining, aims to enable miners to earn revenue from sidechain transactions while mining BTC.

Anduro Features

  • Application Layer: Anduro is designed to accelerate Bitcoin development and adoption by serving as an application layer and allowing multiple sidechains.
  • Community-Led: While Marathon helped incubate Anduro, it is intended to be community-led and driven.
  • First Sidechains: Marathon is working on the first two sidechains on Anduro, Coordinate and Alys. Coordinate offers a cost-effective UTXO stack for the Ordinals community, while Alys is an Ethereum-compatible sidechain for institutional asset tokenization.

Governance and Development

  • Merge-Mining: Anduro uses merge-mining, enabling miners to earn revenue from Anduro sidechain transactions while mining Bitcoin.
  • Decentralized Governance: Governance is initially managed by a consortium of Bitcoin-forward entities known as the Collective but will transition to trustless alternatives once ready.
  • Long-Term Sustainability: Marathon's Chairman and CEO, Fred Thiel, sees Anduro as supporting innovation in the Bitcoin ecosystem and reinforcing Bitcoin's Proof-of-Work sustainability.

Future Plans

  • Partnerships: Marathon aims to recruit influential partners to invest in advancing Bitcoin adoption.
  • Industry Momentum: The introduction of Anduro follows the trend of Bitcoin layer-2 narratives gaining traction, particularly after the Ordinals and BRC-20 hype of 2023.