Polkadot Club event 7

1. Alexei Zamyatin, Co-Founder & CEO
19 August 2021
Encode Club - Polkadot Demo

2. Vision
Realizing the full
potential of
decentralized
finance: access any
asset on any chain

3. Mission: Bitcoin Anywhere
A trillion dollar market dominated by centralized exchanges…
Our mission is enable everyone to invest, earn and pay with BTC on any
blockchain - directly from their wallet.

4. Interlay: From Academia to Industry
Founding
of Interlay. First funding
via open source
research grant.
Specification and PoC.
2019
Implementation
of XCLAIM for Polkadot:
PolkaBTC. Funding via
Web3 Foundation grant.
2020
Launch of
interBTC
Main gateway for
Bitcoin in Polkadot’s
DeFi ecosystem.
2021
Bridge Network
& Products
BTC Bridges to other
chains and cross-chain
DeFi products for BTC
2021
2017-
2020
on security, DeFi, and
interoperability: 30+
papers, 700+ citations.
Designed XCLAIM
Protocol
Research
Imperial College London PhDs UK, Limited Company Web3 Foundation Grants Polkadot’s main BTC Gateway interBTC on all major chains
and DeFi apps

6. A 1:1 BTC-Backed Asset

7. A Simple Application...

8. …Operated by the Community...
...with their own incentives.
Vaults invest funds to insure BTC
(~150% collateralization)
LPs providing BTC liquidity
Collators preparing blocks

9. Why interBTC?
Secured by Insurance
You can always:
- Redeem interBTC for BTC, OR
- Be reimbursed in collateral at a beneficial rate (insurance)
→ Only “trust” that Bitcoin & Polkadot are secure

10. Why interBTC?
Secured by Insurance
You can always:
- Redeem interBTC for BTC, OR
- Be reimbursed in collateral at a beneficial rate (insurance)
Radically Open
- Decentralized governance from day 1
- Anyone can become a Vault or Relayer. You can run your own Vault
- Censorship resistant

11. Why interBTC?
Secured by Insurance
You can always:
- Redeem interBTC for BTC, OR
- Be reimbursed in collateral at a beneficial rate (insurance)
Radically Open
- Decentralized governance from day 1
- Anyone can become a Vault or Relayer. You can run your own Vault
- Censorship resistant
Audited & Peer-reviewed
- Audited by industry leaders. Soon: formal verification
- Based on top-tier, peer-reviewed XCLAIM paper
- Assessed by community & supported by grants

12. Built on Polkadot. Connected to All.
Parachain built with Rust & Substrate
● Scalable (1000+ tps)
● Robust (Rust > Solidity)
● Flexible (reuse Bitcoin’s crypto libraries)
interBTC will be on all chains
● Phase 1:
BTC → Polkadot → Ethereum, Cosmos, ...
● Phase 2: Direct bridges on demand

13. interBTC Today: Public Testnet
40k+ minting operations by a decentralized network:
134 Vaults
Collateralized & securing
BTC
101 Relayers
keeping interBTC up to
date with Bitcoin
Hundreds LPs
providing BTC (testnet)
liquidity
bridge.interlay.io

14. Demo:
interBTC in Action
bridge.interlay.io

15. Tech Highlights
Multi-Collateral Insurance
Maintained by network governance:
● Whitelisted collateral assets
● Ceilings for each collateral asset → MakerDAO-like model
● Why?
○ Stablecoins for stability
○ Interest earning assets for capital efficiency
Collateral Delegation
● Users can “nominate” Vaults = lock collateral on their behalf
● Secure threshold → 110% Vault : 40% users = 150% collateral
● Why?
○ User: earns rewards
○ Vault: leveraged position. More rewards, but also higher liquidation risk

16. interBTC vs other/centralized wrapped BTC
Decentralization Who can join as maintainer? Collateral to secure BTC?
wBTC
Centralized Not possible None
renBTC
Centralized (multisig controlled by
dev team)
Not possible None (potentially own token)
tBTC
Distributed
Restricted number of signatories
Static
Pre-selected set of early KEEP
holders & co.
ETH
150% over-collateralized
interBTC
Decentralized
Unrestricted number of Vaults
Dynamic
Anyone can become a Vault, no
restrictions
Multi-collateral support
150% over-collateralized, up to 40%
can be nominated!

17. How Can I Get Involved?
Go test interBTC: bridge.interlay.io
or run a Vault (docs.interlay.io/#/vault/overview)
Join our community:
Interlay.io
@interlayHQ & @polkaBTC
github.com/interlay
Discord
Code: KgCYK3MKSf
Why?
● Incentivized testnet &
challenges
● Ambassador program
● Be first to know about
crowdloans and launch