Rootstock, Independent Reference
Rootstock is a Bitcoin sidechain with an EVM-compatible virtual machine, merge-mined by Bitcoin miners and bridged to Bitcoin by a hardware-enforced peg. This is an independent reference for people who need the details to be right: every figure here is either read from a Rootstock mainnet node or linked to its primary source, and the gaps are marked as gaps.
Live figures collected 8 Nov 2026 from a Rootstock mainnet node · how this works
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History
From the 2015 whitepaper to the upgrade running today. Every mainnet consensus upgrade, dated by the timestamp of its own activation block rather than its release note.
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Merge mining
The RSKBLOCK coinbase tag, the proof carried in every Rootstock header, and the current steps for a pool that wants to start. Plus who is actually mining it, counted.
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The PowPeg
Every signing federation since genesis, rebuilt from the Bridge's own events and verified to chain together. PowHSM firmware versions, and what attestation does and does not prove.
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The Union bridge
The BitVMX-based bridge being built to replace the honest-majority assumption with a one-honest-participant one — and what is actually running today, which is not yet that.
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Network clients
The programs that enforce consensus: rskj, the Java reference implementation, and Rustock, an experimental Rust reimplementation. Sources, licences and releases.
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RSKIPs
Every improvement proposal that actually activated — on which network, at which block, and in which client release. Proposals that never shipped are left to the repository.
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The ecosystem
Every project in Rootstock's own directory in one filterable table, with each project's link checked — including the ones that no longer resolve.
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In the press
How Rootstock has been covered by the crypto and financial media across its history. Reporting and analysis; press releases and sponsored posts left out.
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On the web
A categorised reading list of writing that actually explains something — deep-dives, security analyses, post-mortems and research. Marketing excluded wherever published.
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Data & method
Where every number comes from, which are read from the chain and which are quoted, how the weekly collection works, and what this site could not verify.
What is here that is not elsewhere
Most of what this site says, you could find in Rootstock's own documentation, and where that is true it links there rather than paraphrasing. Three things, though, are not published anywhere else, because they are reconstructions from chain data rather than restatements:
- The complete PowPeg federation history.
17 federations across 16 handovers,
each with its size, signing threshold, Bitcoin address, and the exact blocks and dates it
was active. Rebuilt from the Bridge's
commit_federationevents and verified to chain together — every handover's outgoing key set must equal the previous handover's incoming set, and all of them do. - Actual merged-mining participation. Block production by coinbase address and client build over the last 4,000 blocks, with every block checked for a valid merged-mining proof.
- Upgrade activation dates read from the chain. Release notes give block heights; this site reads the timestamp of that block, which is usually weeks after the release was tagged.
The site also records what it could not establish. Rootstock does not publish which PowHSM firmware each pegnatory runs, nor a dated membership list, nor the parameters of the emergency multisig. Those are written down as gaps on the PowPeg page rather than filled in: in a reference, an invented value is worse than an acknowledged hole.
Quick facts
- Chain ID 30 (mainnet), 31 (testnet). Native currency RBTC, pegged 1:1 to BTC.
- Block time targets 30 seconds; measured at 31.01s over the last 2,880 blocks.
- No block subsidy. Miners are paid from fees through the REMASC contract.
- The Bridge is a native contract at
0x0000000000000000000000000000000001000006. It verifies peg-ins by SPV proof and commands the PowHSMs to sign peg-outs. - Peg-in minimum 50000000 BTC. Peg-in needs 100 Bitcoin confirmations; peg-out waits 4,000 Rootstock blocks.
- The Bridge currently sees Bitcoin at height 975,101.
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