Testnet is a mock demonstration — no real Bitcoin, no custody, not financial advice. Mainnet is not yet live.
₿ pBTCBITCOIN → PULSECHAIN
Public mock testnet now open

Bring Bitcoin to PulseChain,
without a custodian.

pBTC is a trust-minimized bridge that gives Bitcoin holders permissionless access to PulseChain DeFi — verified by math, not by a company holding your keys. Built on tBTC v2's threshold cryptography and on-chain SPV proofs.

Try the testnet Read the litepaper →

Powered by tBTC v2 bridge infrastructure · Retargeted to PulseChain 369 / 943

The thesis

Bitcoin's liquidity, PulseChain's DeFi — no trusted middleman

For many Bitcoin holders one question remains: how do I make my BTC useful on other chains while keeping Bitcoin's core values? Most bridges answer by asking you to send your coins to an intermediary that mints an IOU. That is a centralized model — prone to censorship, seizure, and single points of failure.

🔓

Permissionless

Anyone can bridge. No account, no gatekeeper, no whitelist. Deposits are proven on-chain, not approved by a desk.

🧮

Verified by math

A deposit is accepted because an on-chain SPV light client proves the Bitcoin transaction actually happened — not because someone says so.

⚡

Useful on PulseChain

Once minted, pBTC is a standard token you can lend, trade, and provide liquidity with across the PulseChain ecosystem.

How it works

Deposit, prove, mint

pBTC inherits tBTC v2's design: a randomly selected group of operators secures deposited Bitcoin through threshold cryptography, and deposits are verified on-chain with Bitcoin SPV proofs.

Deposit BTC

You send Bitcoin to a deposit address controlled by a distributed threshold-signing wallet. No single operator can move it — a majority must agree.

Prove it on-chain

An on-chain SPV light client (LightRelay) validates the Bitcoin block headers, and the bridge verifies your transaction's Merkle inclusion. This is native verification — the most trust-minimized category.

Receive pBTC

A proven deposit grants a bank balance that mints a supply-pegged token on PulseChain. Redeem at any time to unlock the underlying Bitcoin back to a BTC address.

Built on tBTC v2 — the Random Beacon + Sortition Pool select governable-sized (starting 51-of-100) threshold-ECDSA wallets, rotated on a schedule so no fixed group can seize control. pBTC retargets this to PulseChain mainnet (369) and testnet (943).

The honest framing

No bridge is trustless — here's exactly what we trust

Correct cross-chain communication is provably impossible without some trust assumption. pBTC is trust-minimized, never trustless — and it separates the two security jobs that most bridges dangerously blur together.

Job 1 · Verification

Did the BTC deposit really happen?

Answered by on-chain SPV — pure math, via the LightRelay light client. This is pBTC's strongest inherited component. Minting requires a full proof; the optimistic shortcut is disabled at launch.

Job 2 · Custody

Who holds the keys to the Bitcoin?

The hard problem and the honeypot. Roughly half of all bridge losses are custody-key compromise. pBTC's target is a large, independently hosted, slashable threshold-signing set — migrating toward a full keep-core operator network over time.

Guardian heartbeat is liveness, not mint authorization. The testnet shows an authenticated "guardian liveness" signal — it confirms guardians are alive and reporting. It does not, on its own, authorize a mint or make custody safe. Real mint authorization is the on-chain SPV proof; mainnet additionally requires a watchtower layer with veto, pause, and slashing. A green heartbeat never means "custody is solved."
Security roadmap

A phased path from mock to guarded mainnet

The design assigns each job to the layer where it actually helps. Breadth strengthens the watchtower; math secures verification; a small hardened set carries custody until decentralization catches up.

1

Verification — SPV

Mint only against a full on-chain SPV proof (LightRelay + Merkle inclusion). Trust-minimized by math; does not depend on guardian honesty.

2

Custody — signing

Distributed threshold-ECDSA with economic slashing. Interim custody is hardened, multi-host, HSM/MPC-backed, and tiny-capped — with full disclosure.

3

Watchtower — guardians

Validator-run sidecars that submit BTC headers, re-check every mint, and can veto fraud and pause. This is where a large guardian count genuinely matters.

P0

Decisions

Trust model, custody phasing, incentive mechanism (this roadmap).

P1

De-mock + real SPV on testnet

LightRelay genesis + maintainer bot, full-proof minting, automated CI e2e.

P2

Guardian sidecar

Validator watchtower/veto/pause + header submission, incentives + slashing.

P3

Safety rails + custody hardening

Pause, caps, timelock; HSM/MPC multi-host or begin keep-core migration.

P4

Audits + bug bounty + long public testnet

Non-negotiable. ≥2 independent audits of the diff.

P5

Guarded mainnet

Tiny caps, gradual ramp, real-time monitoring, one-button pause.

Mainnet launch gates — all required, none optional

  • ✓ Full on-chain SPV proof required to mint; optimistic path disabled.
  • ✓ Custody: distributed, slashable signing set — no single host or cloud, HSM/MPC, deposit & TVL caps start tiny.
  • ✓ Guardian/watchtower set at quorum with veto teeth and slashing.
  • ✓ Pausability, upgrade timelock + governance multisig, redemption guarantees, rate limits.
  • ✓ ≥2 independent audits of the fork's diff, plus economic review of custody.
  • ✓ Public bug bounty live and a long public testnet with no criticals.
  • ✓ Trust model publicly disclosed — what is trust-minimized vs. trusted.

Full detail: docs/SECURITY-ROADMAP.md · Read the litepaper for the full trust and threat model.

Testnet

The pBTC testnet is a mock demonstration

Run the full deposit → confirm → complete and redemption lifecycle through the real portal UI — connect a wallet on PulseChain Testnet (chain 943), start a bridge, and watch the status flow. It is a faithful preview of the experience, running in mock mode: no real Bitcoin moves, nothing is minted on-chain, and no funds are ever held. Contracts are not yet deployed to PulseChain mainnet.

Open the testnet View transparency page →

Mock demonstration only · Do not send real Bitcoin to any address shown in the testnet.

Read this

Risk disclaimer

⚠ Experimental software — testnet only

  • Mainnet is not live. No funds can be bridged today. The public testnet runs in mock mode: no real Bitcoin, no on-chain minting, and no custody of any assets.
  • Cross-chain bridges are high-risk. They have historically been among the most-exploited components in crypto, with losses driven by custody-key compromise, faulty initialization/upgrade logic, and proof-validation bugs.
  • pBTC is a fork. It adapts tBTC v2 to PulseChain. An upstream audit does not cover our changes (stubbed registry, modified deploy/init logic, the bridge API) — those are unaudited and are exactly where bugs hide.
  • No trustless claims. No bridge is trustless. pBTC is trust-minimized. Where custody is a trusted assumption, we say so plainly.
  • No warranties. The software is provided "as is," without warranty of any kind. Nothing here is financial, investment, legal, or tax advice, and nothing is a solicitation to buy or sell any asset.
  • Verify everything. Before any future mainnet interaction, verify contract addresses on the transparency page and start with small test amounts.