Bitcoin + Polkadot: Completing the BRC-721 Integration to Scale Bitcoin NFTs via Polkadot Coretime

Requested amount: 122,000 USDC

Purpose: Complete the open-source BRC-721 integration stack so Bitcoin-native NFTs can scale using Polkadot(via LAOS + coretime) as the deterministic computation, validation, and metadata layer.

1) Summary

This proposal funds the final integration work required to make BRC-721 production-ready for the Polkadot ecosystem.

BRC-721 enables Bitcoin-native NFTs that remain on Bitcoin (no wrapped assets, no custodial bridge) while using Polkadot as the scalable layer for deterministic validation, metadata evolution, indexing primitives, and developer tooling.

The result is an ecosystem primitive that makes Bitcoin NFT and RWA-style assets viable at scale for applications that require:

Millions of assets
True metadata with evolution
Verifiable rules and provenance
Application-grade indexing and developer UX

All deliverables will continue to be fully open-source.

This proposal does not fund LAOS chain development. The LAOS Parachain is already live and funded independently. Treasury funds only the BRC-721 integration with Polkadot, indexer, SDK, user-adoption, and Polkadot-facing tooling.

Current Status

The technical implementation of BRC-721 has been started by the LAOS team and is currently at 70% completion.

The team has created a walkthrough video, explaining the basics of BRC-721, and showing the current status of the technical implementation. It can be viewed here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Yt_LHAr8z0

We have also created a ChatGPT agent that can answer any questions about BRC-721. Please see it here: https://chatgpt.com/g/g-6935d265a9bc8191b00c390933e5d73c-brc721-guru

2) Benefits for the Polkadot ecosystem

Polkadot Treasury spending should create durable, compounding value for DOT holders. This proposal does that in four concrete ways:

2.1 Increased demand for Coretime (Polkadot 2.0 economics)

BRC-721 uses Polkadot as the computation and metadata layer. As adoption grows, the indexer/validation workload and protocol usage create ongoing demand for coretime (directly or via chains/services that procure it), supporting the long-term economics of Polkadot.

Measurable signal: post-launch, we will track coretime usage attributable to BRC-721 workloads and publish a usage report (where measurable).

2.2 Establishing Polkadot as a credible Bitcoin Interoperability layer for builders

Bitcoin remains the largest liquidity network in crypto. BRC-721 gives Polkadot a specific, developer-usable wedge into Bitcoin:

Not “bridging marketing” but actual tooling and infrastructure developers can use.
A clear value proposition: Bitcoin-native assets + Polkadot-grade compute/metadata.

This helps Polkadot compete in the interoperability landscape with a differentiated story: Polkadot as the computation layer for Bitcoin-native assets.

Measurable signal: number of external Bitcoin ecosystem teams running the indexer and integrating wallet libraries within 120 days of release.

2.3 Reusable infrastructure for the wider Polkadot ecosystem

The deliverables are designed to be reusable beyond BRC-721:

Reorg-safe event indexing patterns
Deterministic validation pipelines
SDK packaging for parachains/dApps
Documentation templates and reference flows

This reduces time-to-market for other cross-chain or UTXO-adjacent projects and creates common tooling the ecosystem can build on.

Measurable signal: number of independent forks/adoptions of the libraries and indexer repos.

2.4 Open-source public good (no vendor lock-in)

All work is released under permissive licenses with reproducible builds and public CI. That means:

Any team can fork, run, or maintain the stack.
Treasury funding creates a public good, not a dependency.

Measurable signal: third-party deployments of the indexer and SDK.

2.5 Why Treasury (vs private funding)

This is infrastructure that benefits the ecosystem broadly, not just one product. Treasury is the appropriate mechanism to fund:

Open-source protocol integrations
Developer tooling and reference implementations

3) Why Polkadot? Why now?

3.1 Bitcoin policy changes do not remove NFT/RWA constraints

BRC-721 is not only designed to compete with Ordinals-style collectibles or speculative Bitcoin NFTs; it also targets application-grade assets such as RWAs, gaming items, naming systems, and other high-volume use cases that require deterministic ownership, scalable metadata, and long-term evolution.

Recent Bitcoin relay policy changes have increased default limits for certain data-carrying outputs, but Bitcoin still does not provide:

General-purpose computation for NFT/RWA logic
A rich, canonical metadata layer
Application-grade scalability for millions of evolving assets
Deterministic indexing primitives required by developers

3.2 Polkadot’s unique value proposition

Polkadot (and coretime) is built for parallel execution and modular infrastructure. BRC-721 leverages this to:

Offload computation and deterministic validation to Polkadot
Maintain an on-chain canonical metadata/evolution layer
Provide production-ready UX via SDKs, indexers, and reference integrations

4) What already exists

The technical implementation of BRC-721 has been started by the LAOS team and is currently at 70% completion.

LAOS parachain is live, stable, and in production. LAOS's Bridgeless Minting allows NFTs to be minted on any EVM chain, while spending only gas in LAOS. The solution greatly scales NFT minting and is already being used by several web3 games.
BRC-721 research/spec exists publicly.
Core primitives already implemented:
- UTXO parsing
- Taproot-related logic (as required by the protocol)
- Collection logic
- Early tooling
Current technical implementation video
Text walkthrough/demo
Open ChatGPT Explainer

5) What this proposal delivers

All deliverables will be released under MIT or Apache-2.0 (final list in Appendix A), with public repositories and reproducible builds.

5.1 Core Deliverables

Bitcoin ↔ LAOS dual-chain indexer (production-grade)

Reorg handling up to configurable depth
Deterministic rollback and replay
Exportable event stream / database schema

Complete BRC-721 validation logic

Full protocol rules coverage
Published test vectors and adversarial cases
“Known-good” reference implementation

Wallet + developer libraries

Minimal, auditable libraries for constructing/validating BRC-721 transactions
Reference integration guidance for wallet providers

Polkadot SDK package for parachain / dApp teams

Clear integration path for Polkadot builders
Templates + example flows

Reference dApp + documentation

Demonstrates mint → index → verify → trade/list (as applicable)
End-to-end developer documentation

5.2 Outreach (developer adoption)

3 workshops targeting Bitcoin developers
Tutorials and technical write-ups
Presentation at relevant conference/event
Office hours for early integrators

6) Execution plan and milestones

Target completion: end of Q2 2026

Milestone 1 (Weeks 1–8): Indexer foundation + reorg engine

Reorg simulation harness passes up to 200 blocks
Deterministic rollback verified (repeatable state from the same inputs)
Indexing latency target: < 2 seconds for new events under normal conditions
Public repository with:
- CI tests
- Release instructions
- Operator documentation

Milestone 2 (Weeks 9–14): Full validation + SDK packaging

Protocol rule coverage documented and complete
Comprehensive test vectors published (including malformed/adversarial cases)
SDK packaged and released with example integration project
Reference dApp alpha available on a public test environment

Milestone 3 (Weeks 16–20): Mainnet readiness

Mainnet readiness checklist completed and published
Adoption outputs delivered:
- 3 workshops (recordings published)
- Tutorial series published
- Presentation at relevant conference/event

7) Budget request (122,000 USDC) with itemization

Total requested: 122,000 USDC

Breakdown:

Engineering (1 full-time engineer, 1 part-time engineer, 20 weeks): 78,000 USDC
- Indexer/reorg + validation + SDK + CI/release engineering
Infrastructure (nodes, storage, monitoring, CI runners): 8,000 USDC
Documentation + developer relations + workshops + events: 30,000 USDC
Contingency (unspent returned to Treasury): 6,000 USDC

8) Accountability, reporting, and controls

8.1 Public reporting

Weekly progress updates on Polkassembly, plus GitHub links and on the LAOS Medium blog
Public dashboard: milestones, commits, releases, tests, open issues

8.2 Return-of-unspent commitment

Any unspent funds will be returned to the Treasury within 30 days of completion.
A public final accounting report will be published.

10) KPIs (measurable, time-bound)

10.1 Technical KPIs (by end of Milestone 3)

Dual-chain indexer runs continuously with reorg simulations passing
Full validation rules implemented with test coverage and published vectors
SDK released + reference dApp demonstrating end-to-end flow
Mainnet readiness checklist completed and published

10.2 Ecosystem KPIs (within 120 days post-release)

2 parachain or Polkadot teams prototyping SDK usage
2 external users running the indexer (self-hosted)
3 workshops delivered; recordings published
4 technical posts + tutorial series published

11) Conclusion

This proposal funds a well-scoped, last-mile integration that positions Polkadot as the computation + metadata layer for Bitcoin-native NFTs without custodial bridging.

It is designed to be easy to evaluate:

Clear milestones and acceptance criteria
Stablecoin budgeting
Transparent reporting and controls
Fully open-source deliverables

Appendices

Appendix A: References

Appendix B: Team Bios

Dr. Toni Mateos

Dr. Toni Mateos leads research at LAOS Network. He was recently awarded an Oscar for Scientific & Technological Achievements from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, as co-creator of Dolby Atmos, from research to product, a tech that has reached ~1Bn users in 90+ countries.

He was Director of Research at Dolby Laboratories for 7 years. In 2019, he left Dolby to co-found Freeverse, a blockchain R&D company, with the vision of using blockchain technology to bring digital ownership to the mainstream.

Toni holds a degree in Quantum Gravity (U. Barcelona), a PhD in Mathematical Physics (String Theory, Imperial College London), a Postgrad in Blockchain Technologies (Polytechnic University of Catalonia), has 17 years of experience leading R&D teams in the entertainment tech industry, and is author of 30+ patents in various technological fields.

Alessandro Siniscalchi

Alessandro is the Lead Engineer at LAOS Network, bringing over 20 years of experience deploying mission-critical systems across domains including blockchain, industrial control for space observatories, military avionics, cinema sound, and audio signal processing. He is highly experienced in system design, software quality, and agile development practices.

Alessandro became a Polkadot protocol developer in 2022 after graduating from the inaugural Polkadot Blockchain Academy and has been a key contributor to the Polkadot ecosystem ever since.

Dr. Alun Evans

Dr. Alun Evans is a co-founder of LAOS Network, and has over 20 years of experience in the tech industry for entertainment. Alun has a passion for building teams with a strong collaborative culture, that are focused on creating products that solve genuine problems. Previously, he was CEO of Shar3d.io (collaborative 3D applications on the web), CTO of Bodypal.com (virtual garment and fitting service), and Director of Barcelona World Race - THE GAME, the first-ever video game that allowed players to compete in a simultaneous real-world sporting event. Alun has a Ph.D. in Medical Physics from University College London.