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Oakland, United States, January 28, 2026, Chainwire – GOAT Network today announced the public release of the GOAT BitVM2 (Testnet v3), a Bitcoin-native zkRollup test network intended to support broader use of BTC in everyday financial activity, while minimizing reliance on custodians, federations, or committee-controlled withdrawal mechanisms.
Bitcoin is no longer a niche asset, with a large and globally distributed holder base and limited options for using BTC without transferring control to third parties. This dynamic has shaped much of the ecosystem, where Bitcoin is primarily held, and most forms of productive activity, when they occur, rely on varying trust assumptions.
Bitcoin-native zkRollup designs aim to address this limitation by exploring ways to enable broader BTC usage while preserving settlement and enforcement on Bitcoin’s base layer. These approaches seek to support additional functionality without introducing custodial control.
Bitcoin’s base layer is intentionally minimal and was not designed to natively verify complex proofs, which has historically led many to view Bitcoin-native rollups as challenging to implement. As a result, several systems described as “Bitcoin Layer-2” solutions rely on external operators or coordination mechanisms for critical functions.
In these designs, withdrawal processes may depend on operator signatures, committee participation, or ongoing system availability, which can limit direct user control over BTC in certain scenarios. GOAT Network is designed around a more restrictive objective: enabling users to exit back to Bitcoin under Bitcoin’s consensus rules, without requiring third-party permission.
“The Bitcoin Layer 2 market hasn’t truly started. Until now, the so-called ‘Bitcoin L2s’ are simply sidechains or custodial bridges. They lack essential attributes like permissionless exit or mainnet-level dispute resolution, which are requirements for BTCFi to be credible.” - Kevin Liu, CEO of GOAT Network.
The right way to scale Bitcoin
GOAT BitVM2 builds on the BitVM2 approach, taking it beyond theory and using Bitcoin’s existing primitives - pre-transactions, one-time signatures, and time locks - to create a practical enforcement mechanism where false claims can be challenged and driven to a Bitcoin-enforced resolution.
Building on previous Testnets, which validated the BitVM2 model within a Type-1 zkEVM running environment with real-time proving, Testnet V3 is a public environment for GOAT Network’s full Bitcoin-native zkRollup stack, introducing GOAT BitVM2 in production for the first time. Execution happens off-chain, validity is proven with ZK, and Bitcoin is the enforcement layer for disputes and exits. The testnet focuses on making the dispute system operational, integrating the end-to-end pieces required for a deployable system.
To support this approach, the system anchors transaction ordering and sequencer activity to Bitcoin through a decentralized sequencer design, with withdrawals tied to Bitcoin-anchored transaction history. This architecture is intended to reduce the risk of withdrawals being processed against inconsistent or alternative histories. The system supports withdrawals across a range of amounts and is designed to minimize reliance on complex user-side processes.
The team plans to introduce a dispute mechanism aimed at reducing the amount of computation that must ultimately be settled on Bitcoin. This approach is based on a garbled-circuit construction combined with a designated-verifier SNARK, with the goal of keeping enforcement costs manageable under expected network conditions.
The broader stack includes an execution environment designed to be compatible with Ethereum-style applications, a decentralized sequencer architecture intended to support network-level coordination, and zero-knowledge proving powered by Ziren, GOAT Network’s audited zkVM proving engine.
Availability and links
The GOAT BitVM2 Testnet is live and open for public testing.
Full article: goat.network/blog/goat-bitvm2-testnet-native-bitcoin-finance-is-here
Testnet onboarding/docs: docs.goat.network/users/goat-bitvm2-user-guide
Developer dashboard: bitvm2-test4.goat.network/dashboard
GOAT BitVM2 whitepaper: https://www.goat.network/bitvm2-whitepaper
Project overview: goat.network
About GOAT Network
GOAT Network is building a Bitcoin-native Rollup stack aimed at enabling BTC-denominated financial activity with dispute resolution and exits that are enforceable under Bitcoin’s consensus rules.
Contact:
Sophia Li
COO at GOAT Network
sophia@goat.network
