Second’s Bark Boasts New era of Bitcoin Payments, drawing in former Blockstream developers

Second, a new Bitcoin development lab, is launching Bark, a next-generation self-custodial wallet focused on fast, low-fee Bitcoin payments. The project has attracted several former Blockstream developers, including 'Grubles', who brings over eight years of engineering experience. Bark implements the Ark protocol, a layer-two payments solution that offers an alternative to the Lightning Network by focusing on user onboarding and payment experience. It allows users to pay Lightning invoices directly from an Ark balance without needing channels or liquidity providers, with transactions handled atomically. Second has raised $5.1 million and plans a mainnet launch soon, with a testnet available on Signet. Bark aims to solve the scaling and user experience challenges of Bitcoin payments, offering self-custody with instant payment velocity, unlike on-chain transactions or existing Lightning Network solutions that can have high onboarding costs and complexity. The Ark protocol utilizes Virtual Unspent Transaction Outputs (vUTXOs) for off-chain transactions, with a centralized coordination server mitigating risks through unilateral exit capabilities, ensuring users can always regain control of their funds on-chain.

(Source：Bitcoin Magazine)