Overview

• Simplicity is now live on the Liquid Network with over $3 billion in total value locked, enabling programmable vaults, decentralized exchanges, custody solutions and governance protocols.
• The language employs formal verification to mathematically prove contract correctness before execution, omitting features like unbounded loops to prevent VM-style exploits.
• By leveraging Bitcoin’s UTXO model, Simplicity eliminates state-based vulnerabilities common to global-state blockchains and enforces self-contained transaction logic.
• Blockstream traces Simplicity’s origins to Dr. Russell O’Connor’s 2012 research, with recent development driven by the Taproot upgrade team and influenced by the 2023 BitVM framework.
• Blockstream has unveiled a roadmap for SimplicityHL, a higher-level abstraction layer aimed at reducing the learning curve and broadening developer adoption.