Second, a Bitcoin improvement lab, has formally launched Bark — its implementation of the Ark protocol — on the Bitcoin mainnet, opening up self-custodial bitcoin funds to builders and on a regular basis customers alike with out the complexity historically related to Lightning Network or on-chain transactions.
Bark is constructed on the Ark protocol, a layer-2 resolution that permits giant numbers of customers to share on-chain UTXOs through bushes of pre-signed, off-chain transactions, spreading charge prices throughout individuals whereas preserving particular person self-custody.
In contrast to Lightning, Ark requires no channel administration or liquidity pre-allocation, addressing ache factors which have lengthy stored mainstream customers tethered to custodial options.
“We needed to make it ridiculously simple for customers to get began with self-custodial bitcoin, maintain it, and spend it, with out shock charges, and with out having to handle channels or liquidity,” wrote CEO Steven Roose in a weblog publish.
As of at the moment, Second’s Ark server is publicly accessible for funds. The launch features a full developer toolkit — the Bark SDK — written in Rust with language bindings for Kotlin, Swift, React Native, Flutter, Go, Python, and WebAssembly. For server environments, Second additionally ships Barkd, a standalone pockets daemon exposing a REST interface with an OpenAPI spec.
A number of functions are already mainnet-enabled at launch.
Noah is a full-stack cell Ark pockets pairing a React Native frontend with a Rust backend. Arke is a design-led native iOS pockets constructed round open-source UX rules from bitcoin.design. Satsigner brings Sparrow-style UTXO administration and multisig workflows to cell customers. Bark Pockets is an Umbrel app supporting Ark, Lightning, and on-chain funds.
A BTCPay Server plugin — additionally constructed by Second — lets retailers course of self-custodial Lightning funds with out opening channels or managing liquidity.
Second has raised $5.1 million from a personal investor and operates with a staff of 11. The corporate has drawn notable business expertise, together with former Blockstream engineers.
The launch comes at a second of heightened competitors within the Bitcoin layer-2 house, with a number of protocols — together with Ark Labs’ Arkade and statechain-based options — vying to shut the hole between self-custody and person expertise.
Second will also host a live AMA on Stacker News on June 9 at 10:00 AM EST.
