Definition
Drivechain is a proposed mechanism, authored by Paul Sztorc as BIP-300 and BIP-301, that would let Bitcoin support sidechains with a miner-enforced two-way peg. It aims to move BTC onto separate chains for experimentation, scaling, or new features and back again, without a federation or a trusted custodian holding the funds. As of this writing the proposal remains unactivated and is considered controversial within the development community.
BIP-300: hashrate escrows
BIP-300 defines the peg. Coins moved to a sidechain are held in a special output called a hashrate escrow. Withdrawals back to the main chain are not instant; they are proposed and then voted on by miners over a long window (months), giving the network time to reject invalid withdrawal attempts. Security therefore rests on the honesty of mining hashrate rather than a multisig of named parties.
BIP-301: blind merged mining
BIP-301 specifies how sidechain blocks get produced. Blind Merged Mining lets Bitcoin miners commit to a sidechain block without running that sidechain's node software, mining it "blindly." This lowers the operational burden of supporting many sidechains at once.
Critics worry the design hands miners new influence over withdrawals; supporters argue it keeps experimentation off the base layer while inheriting Bitcoin's proof-of-work. D-Central presents Drivechain neutrally as an unactivated proposal. Compare it with already-live sidechains such as Rootstock, which uses merged mining today.
In Simple Terms
Drivechain is a proposed mechanism, authored by Paul Sztorc as BIP-300 and BIP-301, that would let Bitcoin support sidechains with a miner-enforced two-way peg. It…