Botanix Labs is excited to announce the release of the Aragog Testnet, the testnet v1 phase of a multi-stage rollout of Spiderchain that began in November 2023 with an unnamed testnet v0 release. Today’s testnet launch is accompanied by the pre-mainnet deployment of several Bitcoin-native applications building together in preparation for the Spiderchain mainnet in 2025.

Botanix Labs pioneered the concept of Bitcoin scaling on the EVM with the previous non-incentivized testnet launch, with volume hitting almost 2 million transactions, more than 400,000 unique addresses, and over 20,000 token contracts launched, proving user appetite to do more with their Bitcoin. With the release of Aragog, Bitcoiners will be able to swap tokens, mint stablecoins, set up a long/short position, and much more, all with Bitcoin as the gas token and settlement layer, on the most decentralized and performant sidechain.

So, what’s under the hood of this release? Here are a few highlights:

• The Aragog Testnet successfully uses state of the art cryptography like FROST (Flexible Round-Optimized Schnorr Threshold) signatures in production. FROST is a powerful type of multisig that aggregates the key shares of federation members into a joint FROST key. This design optimizes communication between multisig participants to reduce time, network bandwidth, and the probability of errors.
• In stark contrast to testnet v0, which we ran through a single node, and all other centralized L2s in the industry, the Aragog release runs distributed sequencers with full nodes geographically decentralized across Africa, Europe, Asia, and the Americas. Botanix Labs firmly believes that Bitcoin DeFi deserves to run on a decentralized Layer 2, and we are building toward that goal.
• The Aragog Testnet features testnet deployments of native teams building Spiderchain DeFi primitives: Palladium, a Bitcoin-backed stablecoin; Bitzy, the Bitcoin DEX/AMM; Spindle, a lending/borrowing market; Rover, an LST; and BitPerp, a perpetual DEX for Bitcoin-native assets.

Launching the Aragog Testnet is a notable step towards bringing Bitcoin back online and onchain. Every member of the Bitcoin economy should work to ensure that demand for onchain applications endures so Bitcoin can fulfill its potential and transition from digital gold to a full global currency. For this reason, the Botanix Labs team continues to work tirelessly to create an ecosystem of Bitcoin-focused builders that includes industry giants like Chainlink, Vertex Protocol, Solv Protocol, and more.

This version of the testnet is the final step before the mainnet v1 launch in Q1 2025, which marks the next phase of the Spiderchain rollout. The remaining pre-mainnet work by Botanix Labs engineering will be mostly around bug fixes, security audits, performance enhancements, and new features. Updates (big and small) are regularly shared on Telegram, Discord, and X – join one of or all those channels to stay current on the latest Spiderchain developments.

See the Spiderchain roadmap here.

Builders, degens, and even casual observers are invited to try Aragog! Because this is a testnet, the best way crypto users can help is by testing it! Try it out and share feedback with us! Our engineers are working hard to ready our code for mainnet, and your feedback is a key part of this process.

Click here to get started.

Did things work well?

Did something not work quite right?

Are there additional features we need to add?

We want to know it all!

And definitely join the conversation in our Discord.